Veiled Selfishness

I've been reading and getting blessed and I realized I'm struggling with the “me” factor as well.

I know what God expects of me, at least in this season. My struggle is not so much where He is leading me, but rather what He expects of me. As immature and misplaced as it may sound in the midst of this flow of blessed blog entries, my question for weeks has been, “Why me?” For some time now, I have had this desire to be lost in the crowd, inconspicuous, taking notes with everyone else and yet several times things have happened to thurst me into small, unwanted limelights here and there. Every attempt to hide has backfired.

I long to help in kingdom-building, but I feel like it's for “those people.” The Jaspers, King's Princesses and Crystals who have tilled the ground of their relationship with the Lord and have a “flawless” and “seamless” past that they can look to as backup for their qualification. Sounds ridiculous, right? I realize just how hilarious it is as I type it out.

Kingdom-builders have to look beyond not just their wants (she's dying of cancer but I want a Benz so how do I pray? Healing, Benz, Healing, Benz... Benz!) but also their inadequacies. Selfishness exists also in the form of self-focus, self-doubt, self-pity, low self-esteem and many other self-s. My pastor once said that there is no such thing as a low self-esteem. We all love ourselves too much. The example he gave was of a young woman who cuts herself and says “I hate myself! I'm ugly!” That statement gives her away because if she truly hated herself, she would be glad that she was ugly.

But I digress. Focusing on our inadequacies exposes the fleshly desire for the glorification of the self. At first sight, thinking about our weaknesses might look like humility, but the reality is it is veiled pride that sometimes even causes fear. The reason I ask myself, “Why me?” is because on some level that would have remained undiscovered without the grace of God, I only want to be exposed when I am as “perfect” as I perceive others to be or as I long to be. I don't want anyone to see my weak side.

Many times self-focus is actually the result of covetousness and comparisons - some people go out and do something dramatic because their life is too “drab” and they want to have a testimony to match someone else's.

God is not as interested in our happiness as He is in our holiness. Getting to that point where our desire is to please Him and Him alone is a difficult journey and we will fight this fight every day of our lives on this side of eternity. The flesh has to be killed, and many times, mercilessly so - “So kill (deaden, deprive of power) the evil desire lurking in your members [those animal impulses and all that is earthly in you that is employed in sin]: sexual vice, impurity, sensual appetites, unholy desires, and all greed and covetousness, for that is idolatry (the deifying of self and other created things instead of God).” - Colossians 3:5, AMP.

I copied this verse for the first part, that says “mortify the deeds of the flesh,” in the KJV, but I love that it says here that idolatry is the deifying of self instead of God. Timely word.

Blessings and thanks ladies for the beautiful and encouraging entries - we're never alone.