{"id":4489,"date":"2026-05-23T18:06:39","date_gmt":"2026-05-23T18:06:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vanjordan.com\/?p=4489"},"modified":"2026-05-23T19:48:18","modified_gmt":"2026-05-23T19:48:18","slug":"the-problem-with-fame","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vanjordan.com\/?p=4489","title":{"rendered":"Better Than Fame"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Fame is defined as <em>the state of being widely known, recognized, and talked about by many people, usually due to notable achievements, talents, or specific actions.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Fame is when you can get lots of people to focus on you and for me, when people focus on me, it usually ends up a disaster. But there is something better than fame, it is the desire to <em>influence<\/em> people for good. I&#8217;ve had actors tell me  &#8220;You have potential&#8221;, whatever that means. The truth is I don&#8217;t want to be an actor or a reporter or anything like that even if I could&#8211;preaching is the only thing on my mind. After this whole thing, I&#8217;ll be famous (or infamous) no matter what I do. So if things ever turned my way, perhaps I would use whatever fame I have to point people to Jesus, to influence them&#8211;Lord willing (not sure I could even do it with dementia). I can&#8217;t think of anything more noble than being a vessel for God to bring people to salvation, or to bring healing and hope to people. When the focus is Jesus, he takes responsibility for the outcome. So it&#8217;s not wise to chase fame for yourself, but you shouldn&#8217;t have any shame for wanting to influence people for God. In fact, if you&#8217;re a Christian, you are called to do it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Fame is defined as the state of being widely known, recognized, and talked about by many people, usually due to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4498,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4489","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/vanjordan.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/18382772210462867925.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vanjordan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4489","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vanjordan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vanjordan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vanjordan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vanjordan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4489"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/vanjordan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4489\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4509,"href":"https:\/\/vanjordan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4489\/revisions\/4509"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vanjordan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4498"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vanjordan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4489"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vanjordan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4489"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vanjordan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4489"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}