Articles
The Greatest Love
In 1985 Whitney Houston released a record which is still heavily played today. It is, in my opinion, an anthem to narcissism, self-centeredness and self-will. Some of the lyrics:
I never found anyone who fulfilled my needs.
A lonely place to be, and so I learned to depend on me.
Because the greatest love of all is happening to me.
I found the greatest love of all inside of me.
The greatest love of all is easy to achieve.
Learning to love yourself is the greatest love of all.
A journalist wrote a critique of the song, initially referencing a ‘70s version recorded by George Benson:
“We had laughed at that song during the seventies as a mawkish ode to self-involvement, not dreaming it would ever be taken seriously. But last year we laughed again – nervously – because Houston seemed to be using it as a theme song for her own aggressive ambition” (Armond White, The Resistance: Ten Years of Pop Culture That Shook the World, 69). I don’t need to belabor Ms. Houston’s sad end, but it is a testimony to the bankrupt philosophy she sang about. And there’s no telling how many young, impressionable minds she encouraged to “to depend on me.”
There is a legitimate form of self-regard which is a natural feature of innate self-awareness (Eph 5:29a; Mt 22:39). Our Creator gave us a sense of value and a desire for well-being, without which we are anxious and unsettled. This, however, is a self-interest that leads to God, not within ourselves, and it encourages healthy dependence on Him and others. It is “healthy” because there are some who equate dependence with weakness and an attack on personal sovereignty. This is unrealistic, for we are social creatures and crave connectedness with others in order to feel whole and fulfilled. This is denied to our detriment. To belt out, “I decided long ago never to walk in anyone’s shadow!” is a pitiful attempt at self-persuasion.
The greatest love of all is the love of God for His creatures:
The greatest quality: He loved us while still His enemies (Rom 5:8).
The greatest gift: He sacrificed the life of His Son to save us (ibid).
The greatest promise: He will forgive every transgression (1 Jn 1:7, 9).
The greatest assurance: He will never leave or forsake us (Heb 13:5).
The greatest hope: Everlasting life (Jn 3:16).
The greatest love of all is outside of ourselves, not inside. As noted last week, God loves us with perfect love. The greatest response to this love is to accept it and build our lives around it. In accepting that love, we find a balance between pleasure and purpose, material and spiritual, self and others, self and God. It is that balance and all that comes with it that frees us from the very kind of poisoned self-image that killed Whitney Houston and others like her who, in the midst of thronging crowds, die lonely.
