Selfishness
"Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?" Jesus replied: " 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.'This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'"
- Matthew 22:36-39
"How often have we heard someone say, 'I've never liked myself.' or
'She just can't love herself'? According to the Scripture, the Truth
is that we do love ourselves - immensely. When Jesus tells us to love
our neighbors as ourselves, the point is not that we need to learn to
love ourselves so that we can love others. Jesus is saying we need to
give others the same attention and care that we naturally give
ourselves."
- Nancy Leigh DeMoss
The last few months have seen a change in my demeanor. I wish I could say that it's been positive, but it hasn't. I haven't been able to pinpoint it, but there's been a barrier between me and God.
Not that God hasn't been present in my life or my circumstances, or that I have neglected time with God in prayer or Scripture. On the contrary, those things have been as much a constant in my daily life as ever before. It's not been for lack of community, or discussion of God - these things have been ample. And yet, I've seen my attitude change almost to the point of hostility toward almost everyone.
I think I dismissed it with the notion that everyone goes through darker times in their spiritual lives where they don't feel God holding their hand through every situation. Times when you are only sustained by recalling God's faithfulness in past (brighter) circumstances - believing that God does not change, and He is as faithful now as He was then. Although I believe this is all true, I think I've been using it as an excuse.
Last night as I was driving to Lake Calhoun for the water project (handing out free water to the Calhoun-goers), I realized that I had lost pretty much all heart for the people in our city. Where had it gone? I couldn't have cared less about the people I was about to hand out water to. I began to think about God's Will, God's desires (because He certainly cares about the people in our city). I don't know why it took me several months to figure this out, but I realized "Wow, I have been so unbelievably self-centered."
Really! All I've thought about is myself! "How will this situation affect me?" "How am I feeling today?" "Who is going to lavish attention on me today?" "Who will compliment me today?" Where's the slap I've been deserving?
Have I convinced myself that my life has been pleasing to God when I can't even muster up the desire to reach out to lost and hurting people? Have I lost all sense of perspective?
I count myself fortunate that God has been lifting this veil from my eyes - that I've been seeing my selfishness as being immense, real, and dangerous. A layer of hostility has already been stripped away just by praying the prayer (and meaning it): "give me Your heart, give me Your desires."
My hope is that this doesn't become a sweet revelation that lasts approximately three days. I hope that over the course of my life on earth, that God would reveal and strip away more and more of my selfishness and that I would seek only God's own will - not just for my life, but (and especially) for His Kingdom and for the lives of the people around me.
Have you any thoughts or admonitions, I'd sincerely love to hear them. Feel free to comment or email!
posted by christinesfakeblog @ 10:07 AM
4 Comments:
Remember that kid from yesterday? The one who was helping us with the water? I don't know her name, and maybe you weren't around long enough to see her enthusiasm for helping out, but it was great. That seems to me the kind of heart to aspire to, something so innocent and openly loving as a child. Especially important considering Matthew 18:1-4.
At that time the disciples came to Jesus, saying, "Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?" And calling to him a child, he put him in the midst of them and said, "Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.
Ben, I'm glad you got to work with her last night! She was also at Jodi's 4th of July party. Rachel and I were talking about how at ease she seemed amongst all the adults, how confident she was - it was really interesting and cool! I look forward to seeing how all the Rock children grow up...I expect their input will continue to inspire us.
For example, (and have grace because I heard this story second hand) Maren's nephew once got put in the corner for being bratty. He had a really bad attitude that wouldn't seem to go away and then all of a sudden, like a flip of a switch, he came over to the adult's with his face lit up and he explained that his attitude went away because he "changed his heart."
WOAH!
Kids can teach us a lot!
Anyway, thanks for sharing about your experience last night! Good to know we were both being prodded at by God (although in different ways) through it.
Thanks for sharing Christine. I hate SElfishness, especially when I realise it's me that's been selfish.....gulp!
I heard someone put it this way. "Jesus doesn't want us to think less of ourselves, he wants us to think about ourselves less" - that means we need to think about other people more. Anyway, my two cents. Thanks for sharing again. You Rock! - Alexis
Um, yes dark times there will be. But the dark times are those which cause us to grow closer to God because we've become complacent with our lives. I've found through dark times or selfish times that I have no other choice but to turn to God for direction and renewal. I'm sincerely happy for you that you went through this period and are now coming through it. People are way better off going through dark times and frankly we Americans don't go through enough of them. We could do with some more darkness, suffering, etc. if only to come to the conclusion that it's all bunk without God and asking Him to fulfill us more and more each day.
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