Everybody Knows Me

In an article for The Wall Street Journal, writer Leonard Mlodinow shares a funny story from the life of baseball great Joe DiMaggio:

It was the summer of 1945, and World War II had ended. Former soldiers, including famous baseball stars, streamed back into America and American life. Yankee slugger Joe DiMaggio was trying to be "Yankee fan Joe DiMaggio," sneaking into a mezzanine seat with his four-year-old son, Joe, Jr., before rejoining his team. A fan noticed him, then another. Soon throughout the stadium people were chanting, "Joe, Joe, Joe DiMaggio!" DiMaggio, moved, gazed down to see if his son had noticed the tribute. He had. "See, Daddy," said the little DiMaggio, "everybody knows me!"

I like the way Steve Farish reflects on this story in a paper he submitted to the annual meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society in 2009. He writes:

The junior Joe DiMaggio made the innocent child's mistake of assuming all the glory at the Yankee Stadium that summer afternoon in 1945 belonged to him and not to his father. Human beings, however, make a far less innocent mistake when we live as if our lives were all about us and our glory.

You know the amazing thing? The amazing thing is that we even do this in our worship. Follow me: We think that we are only to internally praise God and get the warm fuzzies from our worship. We make even the praise of God about ourselves! God wants us to ACT. He wants us to visibly, outwardly give Him praise so that all the earth gives Him sees His Glory. And when we do, the circuit is completed. The power flows. The joy is released.