Selfies Unleashed or Selfless Submission?
by Billy Strother
It was included for the first time in the Oxford Dictionary and declared the same year, 2013, as the “Word of the Year:” selfie! Before 2014, the game Scrabble rejected “selfie” as an allowed answer. But since 2014, “selfie” is an officially legit, playable word in the popular board game.
Sixty percent (60%) of Americans snap a selfie pic at least once a week. Ninety-two (92) million selfies are taken daily. The average individual spends 54 hours a year (7 minutes a day!) taking selfies. Perhaps you missed it this year, but it is coming again on June 21 in 2025: National Selfie Day! Before 2010, taking a selfie could be challenging—cameras required timers to set, and then you had to run back to your seat fast; or you hold a Canon or Nikon 35mm camera, a Kodak Instamatic, or a Polaroid Instant (but you had to wave the dispensed picture around in the air so it would form and develop like some kind of magic trick) at yourself and hope you got it square and in focus. For all those other cameras, you had to take out a completed picture and run it down to Walmart or a drug store to have them developed (taking a week or so), then to see them finally pay a premium at pickup, to notice your framing was off—you only captured your own unflattering left ear or bald spot. No matter how bad (or inaccurate) the selfie, you still had to pay full price for user-error snapshots. In 2010, selfies became easy and sure due to a technological advance: the iPhone 4 with the first front-facing camera.
Selfies unleashed!
Is all of this selfie-taking a trend? No, it is a reflection. Snapping selfies reflects in technology what we are naturally good at, namely, selfishness instead of selflessness.
What is the opposite of “selfie?” It is “selfless,” less-of-self and more of others.
While Mathhew, Mark, Luke, and John chronicle Jesus’s life, Paul interprets that life into theological and practical bites. The selflessness of Jesus is beautifully outlined by Paul in Philippians 2:1-11. We can lift out a few phrases from that passage (NLT):
Don’t be selfish …
Be humble …
Think of others as better than yourselves ...
He took the humble position of a slave ...
He humbled himself in obedience to God and died a criminal’s death on the cross.
If someone chronicled my life or your life could that chronicle be interpreted as a selfless, humble person, who thought of others above himself or herself?
Paul’s interpretation of Jesus’s life is one lived in selfless submission to the Father.
Submission leads to surrender. To give oneself in submission means to sideline our selfish mission for the mission of Jesus. As Jesus was closing his prayer in Gethsemane to the Father, he prays, “Not what I will, but what you will” (Mark 14:36, NIV).
Submission values others more highly than self. We are at our best when we esteem others as if they were more valuable than ourselves. Such is especially true when we esteem those who are broken, overlooked, marginalized, or uncelebrated by the standards of the world.
Submission requires strength. Submission is not powerless surrender because one is out of options. Submission requires the possibility that one would not have to submit, but that one would choose to submit. That choice requires great strength.
Submission hurts. It will cost you. The cost may not be financial. Submission will cost some ego. In our society in which self-promotion is deemed a positive quality, few esteem someone who will put Jesus first. But a day will come when the opinion of only one person counts: the opinion of Jesus.
Submission opens hearts. Jesus not only was on the cross, but he was put there for public humiliation as a criminal, between two other crucified criminals. Yes, we know he was innocent, that Jesus took our place. Yet still, he let others think him the lowest of the low, so that we need not suffer rightly for our wrongfulness. It is not just the death of Jesus which has meaning. The hours of suffering in public opens our hearts to how much our forgiveness cost Jesus, and shows how greatly Jesus values us.
Submission puts us on mission with Jesus.
My prayer for you and myself, especially as leaders, is that when we do take a selfie, that some of Jesus is reflected in the picture.
