Don't Lose My Streak!

A Lesson Learned: by Robin Thomas

Don’t lose my streak! And I’m not talking about the “sprinting across the campus naked” kind of streaking. If you have a teenager in your life then, no doubt, you have heard the phrase,

“I can’t lose my streak!”

A streak is the modern day equivalent of friendship, or at least an acquaintance. Teenagers take meaningless pictures of nothing and send them to other people who thereby send back a meaningless picture to maintain their streak, or an uninterrupted chain of communication. It is considered a status symbol to have 300, 400 or 500 day streaks. If you miss checking in for a day you end your streak.

Ironically, I started using YouVersion, a Bible study app that tracks consistent days of use, or your “streak” and your perfect weeks. I thought little of it at first but then my streak started to grow. 20 days, 60 days, 100 days. I was feeling kind of proud of myself. I am being so good doing my Bible study. Around day 120 I started to feel the need to “keep my streak” which could be translated as encouragement, or pride. In my case, I could feel the pride kicking in, but I wanted to keep it going because it’s a good thing, right? I remember seeing day 122, 130, 147 and then something happened. I was on a trip and somehow I forgot to do my study for the day and I lost my streak. Sure enough, I checked the home page and I was back to 1, and my perfect weeks no longer said perfect, just 21 weeks. I felt two things, disappointment and relief; disappointed that I had lost my streak, but relieved that the pride had been taken away.

You see, pride is the sin I constantly battle, the kind of pride that keeps you going through the motions rather than being truly present. The kind of self pride that is a status symbol rather than a deep appreciation for something or someone.

The danger of pride is relying on yourself and not on God.

12 Before destruction the heart of man is haughty, and before honor is humility. –Proverbs 18:12

I could feel the pride seep into my soul. This comes with many years of dealing with this particular sin. So I lost the streak, the source of false pride. For that I rejoice.

C.S. Lewis says in Mere Christianity, The Great Sin (chapter 8):

”A proud man is always looking down on things and people, and, of course, as long as you are looking down you can’t see what is above you.”

This made me think of a year or so ago when I was driving home, down my street, on a somewhat rainy day, the sun had come out and I saw a beautiful rainbow. And the Lord told me, as if he was in the passenger seat,

“To see a rainbow you have to look up.”