I remember the sinking feeling in my stomach when the talent show was announced for my 6th grade class. I sat at my desk staring blankly at the wall, flipping through mental tabs, hoping something, anything would stand out. I couldn’t sing well, no musical instrument, no weird double-jointed elbow, no dancing, cartwheeling, joke telling. I came up empty.
I sat in the audience of the talent show weeks later thoroughly impressed by my classmates and distinctly aware that everyone had something special but me.
I’ve watched the same struggle on repeat, 20 years later, in my own daughter. At 10 years old she’s developed a keen awareness of everyone’s special talent and is on a mission to discover her own.
This resurfacing of a topic that once preoccupied my mind and caused me great distress has me thinking. Though we don’t have adult talent shows (except for the ones on TV) and most of us probably don’t go around showing off our back handspring or the song we learned in piano practice, the special talent narrative is still very real as we grow older.
We’re still looking to get an “Oh, wow…” reaction from people around us. Oh wow, look at that accomplishment. Oh, wow, did you see their house? Oh, wow, you’re kids are so impressive. And it isn’t just the hope for others to be impressed by us, but the insatiable desire to be impressed by others. We want what’s bigger, better. We’re waiting to be awed.
This talent show narrative that starts as a kid and morphs into adulthood is very telling about the human heart.
We are enamored with awe.
This is a beautiful thing built into our humanity, a part of us created by a God worthy of our worship. But as Christians, there’s some real danger here. If we aren’t aware and careful, this thought process can quickly lead us into a place of idolatry.
God knows the propensity of our hearts and so it’s not surprising that the love of awe is addressed in the very first commandment.
“You shall have no other gods before me.” Exodus 20:3
We read this one and think, well, that’s obvious, draw a big mental check beside the first commandment, and move on to keeping the next 9.
But maybe it’s not that simple. The story of the Bible shows us this problem over and over again. Humanity has a tendency to look for what’s impressive in everything and everyone but God. God reminds his people over and over again that he is Creator, Deliverer, and Savior, the only one sufficient to satisfy and exceed our expectation for amazement.
As we read the first commandment, the question that must remain before us is this:
Where do I place my awe?
Is it set on making others stand in awe of me? Is my heart ever searching and scrolling to find awe in the next best thing?
Or have I set my awe on the Most High God?
We must be watchful of our human hearts, prone to wander toward the shiny and shocking. It’s pretty easy to get sidetracked when entertainment is literally buzzing at our fingertips. It only takes a swipe to see or be the next best thing. We have a surplus of things to impress us. It’s not that scrolling is wrong, of course. It all has to do with the state of our hearts.
What we awe, we will idolize.
Having no other gods before the one true God means setting all of our awe on him, looking to him for amazement, being impressed by his presence.
Maybe today it’s worth revisiting the first commandment, considering the posture of our hearts, and prayerfully asking God to capture our awe again.