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How to Share Your Faith Using Celebrity Losers

Poor losers! Faith Hill and Kanye West could both be high on the nomination list for a music award in the 'Poor Losers' category! If you haven't caught the buzz, check out Faith Hill's reaction to Carrie Underwood winning 'her' Female Vocalist of the Year at the CMAs. Or take a look at Kanye West storming the stage at the MTV Europe MVAs and launching into a tirade about how he should have won the Best Video award. An indignant West complained he should have won because his video "cost a million dollars, Pamela Anderson was in it. I was jumping across canyons...If I don't win, the awards show loses credibility."

Looks like Faith Hill and Kanye West have a few things to learn about checking their egos. At the root of both of their self-absorbed reactions to losing what they clearly expected to win, lie pride and a sense of entitlement - as in,

"I am so fantastic, you owe this to me...I'm entitled!"

But we all know how it feels to deal with our hurt pride. It's easy to fall into the prideful, "I'm entitled" mindset. We live in a media-saturated culture that continually blasts us with appeals to our egos and our desires to want more, get more, and feel entitled to more. As Christians, how we deal with our ego and sense of entitlement should be grounded in Jesus as our perfect role model for humility. The apostle Paul gives us a powerful picture of how we should follow Jesus in this area of our lives:

Don't be obsessed with getting your own advantage. Forget yourselves long enough to lend a helping hand. Think of yourselves the way Christ Jesus thought of himself. He had equal status with God but didn't think so much of himself that he had to cling to the advantages of that status no matter what. Not at all. When the time came, he set aside the privileges of deity and took on the status of a slave, became human! Having become human, he stayed human. It was an incredibly humbling process. He didn't claim special privileges. Instead, he lived a selfless, obedient life and then died a selfless, obedient death--and the worst kind of death at that: a crucifixion. (Philippians 2:3-8, The Message)

Virtually every human struggles with self-absorbed pride and an inflated ego, at least from time-to-time. So use this common human failing that Faith Hill and Kanye West recently put on display for all the world to see, to turn your conversations with friends in the direction of God talk. Try some of these ideas for conversation starters.

  • Ask your friends if they've seen or heard about the video footage of Faith Hill or Kanye West reacting to losing an award they clearly expected to win.
  • Have you ever totally embarrassed yourself by being a poor loser when you expected to win? Are you glad it wasn't caught on video?
  • Do you ever struggle with self-absorbed pride or feeling entitled? How do you deal with this area in your life? Share how Jesus' life is the ultimate example of how to be humble - that the all-powerful God became human and died on the cross to pay for our sins! For help explaining this, check out the GOSPEL Journey.

Aren't you glad you don't have cameras following you, recording your gut reactions and prideful human failings for your fan base to see? But remember that you do have an audience who's watching how you handle what comes your way each day - your biggest fan of all - God!