Lent Blog #4 (One-Line Bio)

It is truly mind-boggling how much of a role online social networking plays in my life.  Facebook has replaced email as the primary way I keep in touch with friends and family, and my newest obsession, Twitter, has proven to be the most fun I have had with communication technology since I was the cool kid with a pager in the 8th grade. (Perhaps, “the kid desperately trying to be cool with a pager” would be more accurate.)

Naturally, I tend to compare and contrast these two internet phenomena, and I pinpointed a major difference while reading Acts 18 today; the amount of space given to describe yourself on your profile.  Allow me to demonstrate:

just one of the many UNLIMITED areas for describing yourself on Facebook

Twitter's super-limited bio section

Making the jump from Facebook to Twitter means having to chisel down your egocentric self-written bio to one line, which leads to two great questions:

1. How would you describe yourself in 160 characters or less?
2. More importantly, how would other people describe you?

So how did Acts 18 get me thinking on this track?

Glad you asked.

Check out Acts 18:7.

And he (Paul) left there and went to the house of a man named Titius Justus, a worshiper of God.

Much of the book of Acts focuses on Paul.  This blog does not.  Instead focus on the owner of the house Paul went to, because he has a fantastic one-line bio.  His Twitter profile would read like this:

Titius Justus

Bio: worshiper of God.

That is 17 characters, counting spaces and the period.  Brief, but what a fantastic reputation, right?  Luke, the author of Acts, felt like he had time for a “one-line bio” about this man, and he felt “worshiper of God” was accurate and appropriate.  He thought those 17 characters summed up Mr. Justus pretty well.  What a grand compliment.

The Bible is full of one-line bios that catch my attention.  Just a few chapters earlier in Acts 11:24, we meet Barnabas, who has been sent to Antioch by the church in Jerusalem.  Luke’s introduction of Barnabas isn’t as brief as Titius Justus’, but just as impressive:

He was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and of faith.

The scriptures are full of such examples, testimonies of the character possessed by committed Christ followers that even in their brevity speak volumes more than our lengthy, self-authored profile pages.

Lent is a season of focus.  We try to keep it simple.  We attempt to think of self less, and Christ more.  That is why I am trying to value the one-line bio that God would write about me today, this season, when my life draws to a close.  I think I’ve worked up a goal of what I hope that would look like;

Brian McCormack: He knows me.  He makes me known.

Jesus, I want to live in such a way that my one-line bio, whether written by others or by you, would contain nothing about my accomplishments, or my attributes, or even my character. But instead, I pray that just as in the case of Barnabas and Titius Justus, my biography would have more to do with your story than my own.

Let this season and every season be a time where my story does nothing but reflect and magnify yours.

Amen.