We
live in a day and time when our English vocabulary is changing rapidly to keep
up with the digital world. A new word that has come into vogue just within the
last year or so is “selfie.” Usually it
is pronounced with a smile and an individual only too willing to share their
“selfie” with you.
Now
to be fair, I think selfies have come about innocently. There was the need
originally to post our face on Facebook, or fill out our profile on Google
Chrome. Then along came the I Pad and IPhone where we posted selfies so that
when our number rang on others’ phone our selfie would pop up. Everywhere we
look selfies are popping up. I wonder if this innocent sociological phenomenon
is saying more than we realize about ourselves?
You
may remember in the News earlier this year where a young lady took her selfie
on an I-Pad and moments later was killed, apparently distracted from her
driving. She even posted with her selfie that she loved listening to a
particular song she was playing at the moment. Distraction from life can be a
real danger.
Selfies
can be selfish.
Selfishness
is not the same as self-care. The latter is wholesome and healthy, while the
former is not. The latter recognizes that a healthy self is necessary to be
able to live life and serve others. The former is unhealthy and never comes to
the point where it values the life of others.
My
own story of extreme selfishness as I look back has been a painful one. I
remember when I had been married a few years, that one day I came across this
following question in a book that just hit me between the eyes:
“Do I care enough about the ones I love that
I am willing to train myself away from selfishness and genuinely seek to serve
their needs ahead of my own?”
The
question shocked and astounded me. Of course I was not that willing! I had been
hit between the eyes with a baseball bat, so to speak, and shocked into
reality…I was one selfish dude. I immediately did three things each day for the
next month: I prayed that God would help me change, I read a Scripture and/or
wise saying about selfishness, and I initiated doing one thing for my family
out of a sheer desire to learn how to serve and be less selfish.
God
honored this traumatic emergency of the inward journey where I had to change
direction drastically! My family will tell you I still have a long way to go!
A
few years ago after this event I went on a contemplative retreat so I could
deal with my inner demons of selfishness. I found a mosaic on the Retreat center
wall that said the following: ”…In the
spiritual life…progress will be in proportion to…surrender of self-love, and of
self-will and of self-interests.” I am not there yet, by a long shot! But I
was impressed by this saying that I sat down in the hallway on the floor and
copied it into the front flyleaf of my study Bible.
Consequently,
I know that have been hard lessons I have learned because of my own selfishness:
1.
Others’ problems are
as important as my own.
2.
I can deeply hurt
others without meaning to.
3.
When putting myself
first in line, I can be embarrassingly asked to go to the back of the line.
4.
I have used people
and value things, when it should be the other way around!
5.
Instead of serving, I
want to be served.
6.
Instead of caring for
others, I have wanted to be the center of attention.
7.
I have learned the
hard way that my time, my talents, my opportunities, my resources, etc. are not
really mine. They are given to me by God to manage faithfully and responsibly.
8.
When I dismiss
others’ ideas as unimportant, I devalue their character.
9.
The world is not
about me!
10.
Others are just as important to God as I am!
11.
I have ashamedly changed the Golden Rule to
the Iron Rule: might makes right, and I will do unto others before they do it
unto me.
12.
Finally, I have had to live with the regrets
of life where I have made it all about me, not being open to the pain and
suffering of others.
“If you’ve gotten anything at all out of following Christ, if his love
has made any difference in your life, if being in a community of the Spirit
means anything to you, if you have a heart, if you care—
then do me a favor: Agree with each other, love each other, be deep-spirited
friends. Don’t push your way to the front; don’t sweet-talk your way to the
top. Put yourself aside, and help others get ahead. Don’t be obsessed with
getting your own advantage. Forget yourselves long enough to lend a helping
hand” (Philippians 2:1-4 Message).
This quote above from
the Message by Eugene Peterson makes it painfully clear that the hardest
journey is the one inward. Give me a mountain in the Smokies to climb, but don’t ask me to traverse the
terrain of a selfish heart! The pathway is blocked by the downed trees of
self-centeredness, the sliding rocks of self-interest and the precarious
precipice of self-love. I desperately need someone other than myself to be the
guide on this journey. I do not trust myself to take me where I really need to
go. In desperation I reach out to Jesus because he is the ultimate example of
self-sacrifice for a cause greater than himself. No joy in a selfie here!
So, are selfies
selfish? They can be. Can selfies be selfless? Only with a lot of prayerful, careful effort to make sure
that self is not the center of the universe! Have you made the difficult inward
journey yet?
In Christian love,
Curtis
