May I Have Your Attention, Please?

One time I filled a blank screen like this one with a handful of seemingly insignificant words and it turned my world upside-down.

My hands moved back and forth and up and down the keyboard of my classic white MacBook, and while a flat white steamed in the mug by my screen, I could feel my heart realign and finally breathe.

I'd glance up every now and then at the gently falling snow, until I was finally finished and the article was published. I closed my laptop and packed my bag and walked across the street to meet some friends for pizza.

Little did I know those seemingly insignificant words would fill 1.2 million other screens across the planet over the next nine days.

My phone seemed to explode in the hours that followed as people clicked and liked and shared. And that's when I realized what I'd done: my seemingly insignificant blog post had gone viral.

A day later I bought a domain name and responded to The Huffington Post's request to share my article and replied to the handful of date proposals I'd received.

And then the offers started coming in from other blogs to guest write or to interview for particular pieces, and not long after that, I accepted a job to write full-time for Health and Beauty Guild in Los Angeles.

All of this happened in the span of a week, and my life suddenly felt like a pulsating blender of unfamiliar emotions and unanticipated attention and unabridged excitement and it all felt empty.

I'm as prideful as they come. And whether I'm thinking too highly or too lowly of myself, it's all the same because either way I'm thinking of myself.

I found that even with hundreds of new Instagram followers and Twitter mentions, it felt like I'd set the bar too high to reach again and that anything short of 300K views per day was disappointing.

That is, until I read an article by another soul who'd felt the pressure and large scope of attention that going viral brings, and that's when my high horse didn't seem so lofty anymore.

He talked about how empty the attention felt, about how it's far more satisfying to be known than to be known about -- that despite the number of hits on a blog or a picture or a video, the One who flung galaxies into the night sky is the only captivated audience that matters.

One time I read about a man named Haman. Haman thought pretty highly of himself and desperately wanted others to like him too. The king asked Haman one day what he should do to honor a certain man.

Because Haman was so prideful, he thought the king was talking about himself and proposed an elaborate plan to robe the unidentified hero in the king's own clothes and to parade him around the city on the king's own horse.

What Haman didn't expect was for this unnamed man to be someone other than himself, and the next day Haman led a man named Mordecai around the city on the king's horse, clothed in the king's robes as the people of the city gathered in celebration.

I don't want to be like Haman. I don't want to miss the king's delight because I was too busy thinking about myself or about how many views my blog has.

I don't want a number of likes or shares to hold the weight of my worth and I don't want comments on what I write to be the reason I like or dislike anything about myself.

Because pride will make you do only the things that make you feel good about yourself, and the last time I checked, that's not a life worth living.

And having the attention of the world, even if it's just my world, will certainly not last forever because millions of views or likes or followers will never satisfy our deepest longings to be known and to be celebrated by the King.

Friend, you and I have the unreserved and undeserved attention of One who holds the weight of our worth and who couldn't like us more if He tried.

And attention to that will turn your world upside-down.