A friend providing support and comfort to someone who is struggling with mental health. By Chanintorn.v/stock.adobe.com
The James Bond films have grossed over $7 billion at the global box office. The series creator and producer, Albert “Cubby” Broccoli, launched the series over sixty years ago, and later passed the franchise down to his daughter, Barbara Broccoli, and stepson, Michael G. Wilson.
The franchise was acquired by Amazon in 2022, but Wilson and Broccoli said they would retain creative control of the films. This week, the pair announced they would step down from their creative roles and allow Amazon to take the lead.
Bond fans likely care less about this news than the fact that the search for the next 007 is still underway. Various articles have identified numerous candidates, but no news is forthcoming. Whoever is chosen will be forever identified with the iconic character.
In other celebrity news, the world’s biggest YouTuber says he doesn’t prioritize his mental health and thinks he wouldn’t be as successful if he did. Jimmy Donaldson, better known to his 364 million YouTube subscribers as MrBeast, said on a podcast that he lives in “hard mode.” However, the pressure of working all the time and being so famous comes at a cost.
There’s the hard work: “No one wants to live the life I live or be in my head. They would be miserable.” And there’s the negative responses he gets: Donaldson revealed that he had read upward of five thousand messages telling him to kill himself. “We were not meant to receive this kind of feedback from basically anyone, anywhere in the world, just all consistently, day in and day out,” he said.
The “invisible hand” that drives us
Some years ago, a counselor friend shared with me a saying that captures the way many people live today: “I am not who I think I am. I am not who you think I am. I am who I think you think I am.”
This, he added, is a fast track to unhappiness.
It is, however, a consequence of living in a culture that measures us by what others think of what we do. In The Wealth of Nations, Scottish economist and moral philosopher Adam Smith (1723–90) theorized that the “invisible hand” of free markets incentivizes us to act in the public interest. Because capitalism rewards us for products and actions that customers find beneficial, we are motivated to do and be what others want us to do and be.
The upside is that this “rising tide lifts all boats” in that the common good is advanced by our self-interest. Products are produced and improved; living conditions are raised; material happiness is advanced.
The downside is that we measure ourselves by how others measure us. And this is a never-ending quest for success that can never be fully achieved. There is always more to do. There are always more people to impress. Just because we succeeded yesterday doesn’t mean we’ll succeed today.
The loneliness and anxiety epidemics of our time are unsurprising and inevitable consequences of such drivenness.
When “moral outrage” is “proof of love”
Here we find yet another reason the Christian worldview is so important to human flourishing.
Scripture invites us to love ourselves because we are loved by our Father. Not because we merit such grace, but because “God is love” (1 John 4:8). There is nothing we can do to cause the Lord of the universe to love us any more or less than he already does.
Paradoxically, the grace offered by Jesus incentivizes us to serve the common good even more effectively than the “invisible hand” of capitalism. We are free to love others whether they love us or not, knowing that we are already loved unconditionally by our Father. We can serve whether they serve us or not, remembering the grace and mercy that has transformed us and paying it forward whenever and however we can.
The ”invisible hand” of materialistic success only works when what we do achieves demonstrable popularity that reinforces particular behaviors. But people often need what they don’t want. They need to be warned against self-destructive but popular actions such as pornography and adultery. They need to be encouraged toward the repentance that leads to transformation in Christ.
Biblical scholar DA Carson observed:
Moral indignation, even moral outrage, may on occasion be proof of love—love for the victim, love for the Church of God, love for the truth, love for God and his glory. Not to be outraged may in such cases be evidence, not of gentleness and love, but of a failure of love.
The free market will not reward such “tough love” on our part, but it is nonetheless vital to personal and communal flourishing.
“You can never love without giving”
I have no idea who will be the next James Bond, but I hope he will not embrace my counselor friend’s maxim. I likewise hope MrBeast decides soon to break the chains of self-destructive free market success.
I have no ability to influence either of these, but I can choose how I will see myself. When I am tempted to seek to impress you with what I am writing, I can remember Jesus’ love for me on the cross and shift from impressing you to loving and serving you. I can do the same with the people and circumstances I encounter today.
Imagine a society in which people served others, not to be loved but because they already are. Imagine the consequences for crime, morality, and mental health. This is the world Jesus came to foster. It is the culture his grace produces.
Amy Carmichael observed,
“You can always give without loving, but you can never love without giving.”
When we give because we love, we love each other as Jesus loves us (John 13:34). With this promise: “By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love one for another” (v. 35).
Who will know you are Jesus’ disciple today?
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