02.04 | The Distraction of the Camera
2 Corinthians 4:1-5:10
‘So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day.’
2 Corinthians 4:16
One of my favourite movies is The Secret Life of Walter Mitty. Great story, stunning videography, beautiful soundtrack.
If you’ve not seen the movie, Walter Mitty leads a meticulously dull life, processing old school 35mm film into the photographs for Life magazine. He compensates for his monotonous existence through a combination of vivid daydreaming and vicarious adventuring with Life’s most legendary wildlife photographer, Sean O’Connell.
The plot focuses on one crucial negative from O’Connell that is lost. Walter is faced either with admitting the loss, or tracking down O’Connell to find it. He packs his unused gap year rucksack, buys the air fare, and treks from Iceland to Afghanistan to hunt him down.
He eventually finds Sean in the Afghan Himalayas, waiting to take a photograph of the impossibly elusive snow leopard. As he sits with Sean, a leopard walks deliciously across the viewfinder, yawning lazily in Sean’s direction. The shot is unspeakably perfect.
There’s a long pause.
‘When are you going to take it?’ asks Walter.
‘Sometimes I don’t,’ replies Sean. ‘If I like a moment—I mean, me, personally, I don’t like to have the distraction of the camera. I just want to stay in it.’
I love this moment. Everything the world sees about Sean’s career is built on the images he takes. The camera shapes the opinions of the watching world, and yet it can be the very distraction that steals the fullness of his most precious moments. What happens for Sean in his unseen life is of greater importance than his visible accomplishments. His inner life is more important than the outer one.
This distinction, between the inner and the outer life, is of central importance to the Christian.
Personally, this is a thing for Paul, because of a group that we’re going to meet later in the letter. Paul calls them the ‘super-apostles’.1 The super-apostles were a wealthy, skilled, charismatic group of leaders. They contested Paul’s authority, pointing to their own impressive credentials, public speaking abilities, and wealth, as evidence to their greater authority to speak and shape the church. Their outer life was spectacular.
In contrast, Paul came to Corinth in genuine humility. By his own admission, he wasn’t a particularly skilled public speaker.2 He worked as a manual labourer among them, in poverty rather than in riches. His own lifestyle is marked more by suffering and persecution and homelessness, than it is by health and wealth and scintillating talent.
Paul is turning the Corinthians’ attention.
He reminds them that, while his outer life may look like poverty and cost and a lack of competence, his inner life—of spiritual vitality, love, and the miraculous outworking of the Spirit of God—is what truly counts.
On the outside it is a jar of clay. On the inside it is treasure.
On the outside it is wasting away. On the inside it is daily renewal.
On the outside it is a temporary tent. On the inside he hosts the presence of God Himself.
On the outside it is afflicted … crushed … perplexed … persecuted … struck down, but on the inside it is an immovable stature of heavenly identity and focus and untouchable joy.
Pauls knows this is of the greatest importance to every believer, because when the outer becomes more to us than the inner, we begin to live by the empty values of a world obsessed with the external life. Health, wealth, charisma, beauty, ability. The world’s obsession with the outer life insipidly enters our own hearts, turning our imperfections to be proof of failure, or our credentials to be the measurement of our true value. “Superficiality,” as Richard Foster put it, “is the curse of our age.”3
There’s a magical phrase here.
Day by day.
Shifting our values doesn’t happen overnight. But the tiny daily choices we make will form us. Every decision to act with integrity, every choice to pray when no one is watching, every refusal to bend the truth when nobody would know, and every time we don’t let the camera distract from a moment of private beauty, all contribute to the steady renewal of the heart. Our little choices are mighty in the winds of the Spirit.
Reflect:
What outer things worry me about my life? Go nuts with this. Maybe write a list. If you’re like me, it may be a long one.
Bring these things to the Father. Surrender them to Him.
What little choices can I make towards the cultivation of my inner life today? Ask the Spirit to meet you here, unto the day by day restoration into a person of true freedom and peace.
Pray:
Father in heaven,
There’s a lot of work to be done here.
I recognise that I live in a world,
That tells me that the good life looks like
Beauty, success, skill, wealth, popularity, comfort,
And an ergonomically designed house.
Father,
Would you renew me.
Renew my values,
That I may seek more deeply the restoration of my soul
Than the polishing of my circumstances.
Renew my pursuits,
That I may invest more in the crafting of my character
Than the perfecting of my image.
Renew my soul,
That in my very places of discomfort and lack,
You would make me new
In the untouchable joy and peace and rest and peace of heaven;
That, within this jar of clay,
May be found great treasure indeed.
In Jesus’ Name,
Amen
Old Testament:
For those also reading the Old Testament this year, your additional readings are here:
Deuteronomy 32:48-34:12 | Proverbs 11:22-31
2 Corinthians 11:5; 12:11
2 Corinthians 11:6
Richard Foster: Celebration of Discipline, p.1