Unique-ify!
Dan Kunz
When I coached high school boys’ varsity basketball for fourteen years, our “run out” song was “Eye of the Tiger” by Survivor. If you’ve ever watched any of the Rocky movies, you’re probably familiar with it. From the driving beat, to the stirring lyrics, to the backstory from the movie(s), it tends to get people fired up. It certainly got my players fired up. They may have run faster and jumped higher during warmups than any point during the game! That song became the theme song for our basketball program. I once tried to change it and was nearly hung up by the thumbs for it! I was told by parents, “My son has looked forward to playing for the Knights and running out to that song for years. Don’t you dare change it!” Ah, how times have changed.
Rather than having a time-honored tradition and a rallying point for generations of basketball players, it appears many teams today rely on whatever music the senior captains of the team choose. (With the coach’s approval, I’m sure.) That’s perfectly fine, but something may be lost in this approach. Is a tradition being formed? Is loyalty promoted? Is the impact of the music considered? Maybe. Or not.
Over time, it seems the world has placed more and more emphasis on being “special”, “individual”, or “unique”. God created us as one-of-a-kind beings, no doubt. Psalm 139:13 “You created my inmost being. You knit me together in my mother’s womb.” That, however, doesn’t mean we should not share many common beliefs, experiences, and feelings. The urge to become the center of our own universe is not new. Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote, in his essay entitled “Self-Reliance” back in 1841, “To believe our own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men, -- that is genius.” Sounds like 2021, doesn’t it? His point about being self-reliant and not “one of the herd” is a valid one, but we have to be careful of applying the principle to our spiritual lives.
In the attempt to “unique-ify” ourselves, it becomes tempting to create God the way we want him, the way we believe him to be, the way it suits our lifestyle and choices. God created man, not the other way around. God’s Word is not a delicatessen. It’s not a wish list. It’s not an Amazon of religious choices. You can’t walk down the aisle and fill up your cart with whatever pleases you, comforts you, or intrigues you. God’s Word is a constant because God himself is constant. Numbers 23:19 “God is not human, that he should lie, not a human being, that he should change his mind. Does he speak and then not act? Does he promise and then not fulfill?” Agreeing with others on who God is, how he feels about us, and what he has done for us, is not a bad thing, it’s a good thing! What a comfort – to know that others believe the very same thing as you!
Emerson also wrote in “Self-Reliance”, “their creeds a disease of the intellect.” The fact that Christians join in stating exactly what they believe is not a negative. It’s a positive. Gravity isn’t relative. Oxygen isn’t something that just some people need. A young child’s giggle makes pretty much everybody giggle with them. Although it’s true we’re all unique human beings, we’re still all human beings – ones who need the same Savior, who saves us from the same fate, because of the same illness – sin.