Wow, I had a lot of visits and views on yesterday’s post! Looking at the numbers today was quite a heady experience.

Until I remembered that I wrote only the introductory paragraph.

My proverbial 15 minutes of fame didn’t even belong to me. As of this post, I’ll return to my obscure little corner of the web, where a certain blogging expert will declare that I repel readers by using complex sentences in lengthy paragraphs. Ironically, the sentences in yesterday’s post were even more complex than mine. And the paragraphs were often much longer.

Anyway, I found myself sulking a bit because a guest post on my blog attracted far more attention than posts I labor over. And the very sin of sulking confronted me with the hard truth that (once again) I’d forgotten that the Lord cares more about my faithfulness to honor Him than He does about the number of followers I attract.

³ Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. ⁴ Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. ~~Philippians 2:3-4 (ESV)

Selfish ambition clamors for attention. It covets the followers, the likes and the reblogs that the prestigious bloggers get. In short, selfish ambition seeks glory for itself.

Secular writers may operate from selfish ambition. And why shouldn’t they? They don’t profess to care about glorifying God, so it makes no sense to expect anything else from them. Let them jump through all the recommended hoops to promote themselves, if they want. Their temporal popularity is their reward, and they might as well enjoy their treasure now.

Christian bloggers, however, do well to remember what Jesus taught about treasure:

¹⁹ “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, ²⁰ but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. ²¹ For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. ~~Matthew 6:19-21 (ESV)

If we blog simply to get a string of likes at the bottom of each post, we’d better examine our motives. We should ask ourselves whether we blog in order to build our own personal empires or in order that the Lord receives glory and honor. Perhaps remaining obscure allows some of us to develop Christlike qualities such as — oh, I don’t know — humility?  And perhaps humility glorifies God a whole lot more than having the hottest Christian blog on the internet.

Yes, it’s been ego inflating to see those blog stats today. But I’d prefer to blog in whatever way most glorifies my Lord and Savior.

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