The world is full of interpersonal problems, large and small. Maybe it's two kids who won't share a toy. Maybe it's two world leaders who want to annihilate each other. Much of it still boils down to interpersonal problems. Regardless of your perspective on divorce, it is unavoidably true that the cause of all divorces is ... interpersonal problems. And most of our tensions and conflicts today are, at their core, this very same problem. Why? What's the deal here?
It's not really a mystery. We are, at our core, selfish human beings. Maybe it's because we were made in God's image. God is fundamentally selfish, but for good cause. We think of ourselves as the center of the universe, but we're not. He thinks of Himself as the center of the universe, but He's absolutely correct. I don't know if that's it. I just know that we worship the creature rather than the Creator (Rom 1:25), with "the creature" most often defined as "me."
The call on every follower of Christ is to die to self (Col 3:5; Luke 9:23; Rom 6:11). We are called to love God and love one another, keeping in mind that love "does not seek its own" (1 Cor 13:5). Perhaps we weren't made for this selfish "I" at the center. Maybe we were made ... to love, to give of ourselves. Perhaps if everything was not about "me," these storms of life would be greatly diminished.
5 comments:
It certainly seems like that is what we were made for, and life seems to go a lot smoother when we remember that.
There is no I in center. This is something that is so prevalent even among christians. That all to many place themselves as the arbiter of the Truth, and place their Reason over all else is disturbing.
Your clever post title says it all. We start out our earthly lives as self-absorbed, demanding babies. We should mature over the years into less selfish individuals, but clearly, we never lose our focus--i.e. fixation--on our own desires. I just read online someone’s observation that six of the Ten Commandments (#5-#10) address sins of selfishness in some sense, and I see that even #1-#4 address man’s inclination to put himself above all others, especially his Creator. As you point out, this core selfishness asserts itself essentially any time two people (or more) mix.
Interestingly, Craig, while there is no "I" in "center," there is an "I" right in the center of "sin."
Why there certainly is. Right there in the middle. I wonder if we can learn anything from that.
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