“They took Absalom and cast him into a deep pit in the forest and erected over him a very great heap of stones. And all Israel fled, each to his tent. Now Absalom in his lifetime had taken and set up for himself a pillar which is in the King’s Valley, for he said, ‘I have no son to preserve my name.’ So he named the pillar after his own name, and it is called Absalom’s Monument to this day” (2 Sam 18:17-18).
The man who once enjoyed praises for his extraordinarily good looks (2 Sam 14:25-26) was also the only person who really wanted to remember himself after he was gone. And such is the sad life of a narcissist. When we believe the lie that we are God’s gift to humanity and constantly try to make ourselves look better than everyone else (or pull everyone else down to draw attention away from ourselves), people will actually be relieved when we’re finally gone, and do their very best not to remember us.
If we truly desire people to cherish our memory after we’re gone (see Eccl 7:1), then we must fall out of love with the person staring back at us in the mirror, fall in love with God, and put others before ourselves.
“Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves; do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others. Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus” (Phil 2:3-5).
