Selfishness, obviously, is a sin. It's one of those sins that we don't necessarily have to refrain from the temptation of, its more of a constant battle against something that is the natural result of sin living within us. One thing the author mentioned in setting the stage for the chapter was how we are all selfish. Sure, you can immediately think of those blatantly selfish people in your life but to some degree we are all selfish. We all think about our own needs, or own benefit, our own wants. Of course, it is healthy to take care of ourselves and be confident and work hard to further ourselves. It's when we don't put God in the path we are fighting for that we lose a healthy view. I fell in love with this quote she wrote:
"Choosing to follow Jesus is not just about praying a prayer or avoiding certain attitudes or behaviors. When we give our lives to God, He begins a full-scale overhaul of our hearts, chipping away at our ugly self-centeredness and reshaping us to be like Jesus."
As God has continued stirring' this in my heart, I've really began to see the selfishness in my own life. I don't think I'm a blatantly selfish person, but I've been more aware of my motivation and examining the selfishness within it. Its been disgusting, to be honest. Through prayer I began asking God to take me to the extreme. Help me to strip away all selfishness and see what life would be like. It began to bring together several deep thoughts I've had over the last couple years.
About two years ago I had this sort of realization. I thought, in a way, Christianity is sort of selfish. I mean, we except Jesus into our hearts so that we can go to Heaven. We step out in faith and give with our money, our time, and our hearts.....with the promise of His blessings on our lives. I wonder...would you (or me) still be a Christian if there were no promises of blessings? Would you follow the creator of the universe who loves you more than you could ever fathom and sacrificed his son for your sins....without these promises? Isn't that, in essence, what Christ did? He came and died for OUR sins, with NO promise that we would follow him. He did that for us knowing that many, maybe even most, would never acknowledge it. THAT is pure selflessness. As we journey to be more like Christ, I think that is an image we really need to begin transforming in our minds. What is PURE selflessness? Would you follow Christ and change the world for him if you didn't get to go to heaven? OF COURSE...HE WOULD NEVER ASK US TO. He is a good and loving God who ENJOYS blessing us and is EXCITED for us to get to heaven! My question is more of a trigger to get us thinking about what our motivation is in everything that we are doing here on earth, including following Christ.
You know how sometimes when you start to think about the reality of God's love, the reality of Heaven being a place and that we will be there for eternity....your mind kind of starts to explode? It's literally unfathomable. At some point we have to just play the faith card so we can relax our brains! (Maybe its just me.) Nonetheless, I had to make this idea more real and tangible so I started applying it in my own life. I started to think about what complete selflessness in my life would look like.
I love the idea of God seeing a panoramic view of our lives. Sort of like a life timeline all in one view, looking down and seeing it all at once. We, however, see our lives like a long road. As we travel it, we see new things but God sees it all at once. He sees the cause and effect of everything. He sees where choices will take us and why. There is a sign at my son's preschool as you leave the parking lot that says "You are now entering the Mission field." I thought about that word 'Mission.' I thought about my life as a mission, sort of like in the military. Soldiers are sent out to accomplish a mission in the military. They chose certain soldiers equipped with certain skills to accomplish a task for the greater benefit of the war. God has a mission for me on this earth. It's benefit is for His kingdom come. Let me say that again. HIS BENEFIT IS for HIS kingdom come. You know what that means? Its NOT ABOUT ME. My benefit was never a factor in the equation. Again, because He loves us He will take care of us in the ways HE knows we need it, but those desires and needs on our hearts, those things that flame the selfishness in us....they aren't part of the equation.
Marriage: What would you do if in praying to God and asking him to reveal is purpose for you life, He told you that it was to meet the needs of your spouse, no matter what? If your part in His mission was to make your spouse happy and complete. Maybe its to be a good friend, daughter, mother, etc. What if He told you that these people in your life would never meet your needs back. Ever. That your life would be hard and full of sacrifices and selflessness and trials? BUT, your reward was in heaven. In essence, life on earth would full on SUCK for you by putting all of your focus on making OTHERS fulfilled. Would you do it?
Again, God doesn't ask this of us. He loves to bless us and bring joy to our lives. This has merely been an extreme that God has taken my heart to to help me fully realize how small I am and how little my needs really matter in the whole scale of time and in His ultimate plan. I wanted to share this because although extreme, I think by taking our hearts to this place we can start to form a more humble view of our place on this earth and really begin to be transformed from our selfishness into looking more life Christ and fulfilling the need He has for US here on earth.
I'd love to hear your thoughts on this issue. Do you think Im crazy? Am I contradicting something in the bible? I have never claimed to be savvy in the word. It is definitely a weakness of mine and I really really hope I can develop more diligence in learning the word. This blog is about what God puts on my heart and passing some of those thoughts and challenges onto other believers and hope to spur some deeper understanding of our relationship with Christ and his plan for our lives.
