I had a bit of a chuckle when I watched the telly and saw Lady Gaga getting off the plane at Auckland airport for her New Zealand visit last month. She was in a tight skirt, tottering on top of enormous platform shoes. She had to shuffle her way down the steps from the plane, lest she end up nose first on the tarmac. I imagine somewhere in her entourage is a man with a step ladder whose job is to lift her out of her shoes at the end of each day.

“And yes, I do have a certain self-confidence, but I want everyone to have that confidence,” is one of her more well known statements.

That’s what intrigues me about this latest pop music sensation. Because from what I have seen of her on TV interviews and on chat shows, she is anything but self confident. She always looks incredibly self conscious, very uncomfortable in all those weird outfits, and tends to behave a bit like a possum in the headlights when she appears on camera.

She doesn’t look comfortable being famous. And that’s the thing with fame – I don’t think anyone is comfortable with it. We are not wired to be famous. God didn’t make us that way.

As a result, people deal with fame in various ways. Some link fame to power and seem to think it gives them the right to tell everyone else what to do, or assume that everything they have to say is of importance. 

Others use it as an excuse to try to live a life without rules – doing what they like, when they like and to whom they like. And yet others go to the other extreme and become virtual recluses, hiding in their fenced-off mansions and refusing to engage with the world outside.

God designed us as social beings. He equipped us to work productively and provide for our needs, to work alongside others, to help others and to serve them. When we are not doing that, and when we are not being true to ourselves, it starts to go wrong.

Sometimes fame can’t be avoided and that’s when we have to be extra alert. Jesus was famous – or at least as famous as anyone could be in First Century Palestine. Yet he showed us how to handle fame and being constantly in the limelight.

Jesus stayed on message. He constantly reminded everyone that he was doing his Father’s work, that his life had a purpose and nothing was going to distract him from it.

He surrounded himself with a small group of trusted friends. The gospels seem to hint that Jesus had one particularly close friend, John, who perhaps provided the companionship the human side of Jesus desired. Jesus sought times of solitude to pray and maintain his intimate relationship with the Father. When dealing with the public he was patient, compassionate, understanding of their needs.

It seems like a great blueprint for dealing with fame, for ensuring it doesn’t go to our heads. All of us can be ‘famous’ within our own context – at work, church, out in the community – so on some level it’s an issue that affects all of us.

Which reminds me … I must update my photo at the top of this column.

– Duncan Pardon