Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves; otherwise we will be scattered over the face of the whole earth.” (Genesis 11:4)
Those were the famous last words of mankind before God confused the one language and scattered the various peoples across the earth. The motivation behind their words isn’t altogether different than the motivation that exists in our current generation – “the YouTube Generation.”
YouTube is an interesting phenomenon that has enabled just about everyone who wants to make a name for himself feel that he or she is somehow famous. Spend a few minutes surfing YouTube, and you’ll find a whole lot of narcissism. You might ask the questions, “isn’t it good for kids to have a solid self-esteem?” My answer is “no.”
Rather than having a high self-esteem or even a low self-esteem, God wants us to have no self-esteem.
The problem with either high or low self-esteem is that we must focus on ourselves to arrive at a conclusion of which one we have. God doesn’t want us focusing so much on ourselves as He wants us to focus on Him. The people building the Tower of Babel believed that they were so important that everyone should know who they were.
As it turns out, history remembers very few people. The further we get from a period of time, the fewer people we remember. So rather than building a name for yourself, perhaps it would be a better use of your time to point other people to God. He is the everlasting one; He is the famous one whose name will never be extinguished.
Heavenly Father, help me never to steal the glory from you. Keep me from being consumed with making a name for myself and believing that I am somehow worth being remembered. Instead, help me to point others to you so that you can receive all glory and praise.
About Seth
From todays reading, I found it interesting that Noah was the one who got drunk and lay naked, yet he punished his grandson…. Sometimes we as fathers have to remember that our actions and sins will lead others to sin in the family.
Good reminder, Brian. No man is an island. As iron sharpens iron……
It’s easy to think that our sins affect only us, isn’t it? This is a great reminder of the influence we have on others.