Most Popular

In 1947, the fans of Major League Baseball were first given the opportunity to vote for the starting position players in that game.  This was a way for MLB to return the game to the fans and fans have been voting ever since.  I remember going to the 7-11 as a kid to get a ballot and vote for my favorite players.  You could get a punch card for free, punch the card beside your favorite player and mail it in.  This was pretty cool for me since I grew up in North Carolina which had no professional team.  The first time I ever voted, I made sure to vote for every Baltimore Orioles player, then I mailed me card.  This year, I was able to vote via the Internet and was allowed to vote up to 20 times.  No, I didn't only vote for Orioles players, although they  did get most of my votes.  This year, Chris “Crush” Davis of the Baltimore Orioles finished first with 8,272,243 fan votes to edge Miguel Cabrera of the Detroit Tigers, who had 8,013,874.  He still would have won without my 20 votes, but I helped make him the leading vote-getter this year.  He would have gotten my vote any way since he gave a bat to my son at last years' Baltimore-Oakland baseball game.

School will be starting for many this week, as our kids go back to school being promoted to the next grade.  I remember moving from James Y. Joyner Elementary School to Mendenhall Junior High School and then from Mendenhall to Walter Hines Page High School.  The beginning of those two years were filled with anxiety and hope.  It was the opportunity to meet new friends and find your place.  I was surprised at how quickly the "popular" group rose up from among us every day students who had no chance to be popular.  I was always fascinated by that because I never was popular at school.  I had my group of friends and I was at peace with that, but there was often this thought wandering in my mind wondering what it would be like to be a part of that group.  I actually tried to slide into the that group through a back-door connection with a neighborhood friend, but it took too much work to keep up with the latest trends.

Our kids are going to face that same type of pressure in the next few weeks.  They all want to be liked and no one wants to be the outcast.  Even if a kid acts like they enjoy being the brunt of the jokes, they really don't like it.  Some of our kids will be tempted to do foolish things to get people to like them.  They will compromise and make bad choices to get on certain people's good side.  Of course, we as adults do the same thing.  We desperately want to fit in, so we go along with what everyone else is saying and doing.  We don't want to be looked at as the oddball or the fool.  So we go along with co-workers who are cooking the books or we accept weak theology or we jump in on the joking.  The need to be liked and accepted is universal and affects us all.

Here's where we need to come back to the Bible and the life of Christ.  If you take a moment to read Matthew 21:6-11 27:15-26, you will see the true colors of the crowd.  Jesus on one day is the conquering hero, loved and adored by all.  The next week, He is the pariah who needs to be crucified.  The work we use is "fickle".  The crowd will cheer you one minute and boo you the next.  We need to make sure our kids know and remember this as they begin the new school year.  It is imperative that they build lasting friendships with people who can be trusted rather than seeking a superficial acceptance by those who want to control.  We need to make sure they know that God is more concerned about their faith in Him than the approval of others.  They need to know that God loves them so much He sent His only son to take their place on the cross.  He values them, so they can be at peace in who they are.  We need to encourage our children to be rebels and go against the flow of the pagan culture in which they are living.  The best way we can do this:  Do it ourselves.  That's right, model this lifestyle for our kids.  If they see us living to please God rather than others, they will be more inclined to do the same.  If they see us being rebels against the pagan culture, they will realize this rebellion is a good and healthy thing.  

If you were to ask me which of my classmates at Mendenhall or at Page was voted "Most Popular", I couldn't tell you.  However, if you were to ask me who were my real friends and helped me through some of my most difficult days in my teen years, I can easily rattle of those names.  The same will hold true for our children if we teach them that being faithful is more important than being popular.