You are a commercial

​During March Madness yesterday, I saw a fun commercial. It was an AT&T commercial featuring Matthew Stafford. As a storyteller, I loved how they weaved Stafford's trade from Detroit to LA into a narrative about trading your old phone in for a new one. But beneath the entertainment, I knew there was a motive.

AT&T wanted me to join the AT&T network.

At the beginning of Andy Stanley's sermon this week, he asked the question, "if your life is a commercial, what are you advertising?"

Some time ago, I had someone suggest that I like attention. I don't think they meant it in the kindest way 😊🤷‍♂️. But I quickly let them know that they were right. I do like attention. Because the reality is, once you have someone's attention, you have the power to point that attention somewhere else.

It's kind of like AT&T - they get my attention with Matthew Stafford, then they start pointing me toward a new Samsung Galaxy s22 phone.

For AT&T - getting our attention with Matthew Stafford without ever redirecting our attention would have been a bad sales idea. And for us, when we get people's attention - whether we like it or not we are always getting someone's attention - if we're trying to influence the world - sell it something - keeping the attention for ourselves is a bad idea.

There's a story in the book of Luke in the bible. Jesus had sent 72 disciples out to heal the sick in various towns. When the disciples returned to Jesus, they were fired up about what they had done. They told Jesus, "Even the demons submit to us in your name."

Jesus acknowledged they were doing good work, but then quickly told them, "Do not rejoice that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.”

Jesus was telling them the healing was their commercial - it was their chance to grab people's attention - but once you have it, make sure you're pointing it to something much bigger than you.

There will be some reading this who will say 'I am genuinely NOT interested in having attention on me.' I understand that. But whether it's intentional or not, all of our stories ARE telling a story. All of our lives ARE selling something. We ARE all commercials.

You don't have to TRY to sell something to BE selling something.

You can disregard that; but the truth is - after every interaction with everyone we have - there is at least a microsecond of pondering in our brains - do I want to be more like that person? Is there something about that person's character that would help my character be more in line with who I long to be?

When I write here in the mornings. When I leave here and go interact with people in the world. I absolutely long to be a commercial. With every interaction I have with every single person I interact with, I want them to know they are loved. And I want them to know the love I love with comes from the love God loves me with.

I am very imperfect with my commercials. (Matthew Stafford wasn't available for my commercial).

But here's the thing. When you know what your commercial is trying to sell - when you own that - when the commercial isn't working you at least know where you might want to consider making some edits. You know where to consider re-writing your story a bit.

You see, many times being a commercial is selling yourself on the kind of life you want to live as much as it is about influencing someone else's life.

It's really difficult to make one sale without the other.