loveisgreaterthan[dot]com

Ever since being a part of CedarCreek’tv’s Junior High camp, a “mantra” that Sam Melden says — often, has been wrecking me. I cannot escape it’s grasp, it is piercing me all the way to my soul. I believe it to have the potential to really change the way I, and probably a lot more people, live. Essentially, what he talks about is that there are really only two ways to live. Take everything else away, and you can really boil life down to living in one of two categories;

me for me.
or
me for you.

Now, you may be glancing above and saying that there is nothing really revolutionary about those words. You’re right, there isn’t It is really at its core probably a very central tenant of many faiths and philosophies. I think what is so incredible about it is that only seven words that can truly guide a person.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about selfishness. How at it’s core, most sin boils down to this one thing. We cheat and lie to get ahead. We drink or do drugs to feel good. We sleep with random people because it feels good. We cheat on our spouses because we aren’t getting satisfaction at home…

I believe that selfishness is a slippery slope. If we start getting too involved in what we believe we deserve, or what we continually believe is important to us, but screw everyone else… then as more time goes by, the more audacious the type of sin seems less important.

I am very much at fault here, I am awful at this thing called selfishness. I’ve spent so much of my life trying to do everything with nobody but myself in mind. Certainly before I became a Christian, my life was consumed with this line of thought. I mean why not, we live in a culture that preaches “do it for yourself!”

But you would think that after asking Christ into my heart, that I would have gone through some sort of radical transformation. That perhaps I may start to “get it.” Well I’m here to confess to you today that nothing of the sort has happened. I still find thoughts consumed by methods of personal gratification. I want things done my way, and I want to do things to make me happy… screw everyone else. I fight this battle every day, and I probably lose way more often than I win.

At work, it’s thinking of every excuse in the book to not go the extra mile to help someone out. It’s not going out on a limb and taking risks for fear of rejection. It’s dragging my feet finding adequate help because I want to feel secure in my job. It’s looking at my co-workers, and instead of thinking of ways to work better together, thinking of ways to outperform them.

At home, it’s not doing things around the house, which by the way makes my wife very happy, because it doesn’t make me happy. It’s not serving my wife, because sometimes I feel like she doesn’t serve me. It’s pitching a b*%&h whenever I’m asked to do something, that really isn’t that difficult, because it is inconvenient for me to do so. It’s not being more of a spiritual leader, because I feel inadequate.

All of these things, every day of the week, every hour of the day, enter into my head at some point. I wish I could tell you that I’ve figured out a way to be a better person all of the time. But I haven’t. And it saddens me to say that I’ve only recently started to figure out that life isn’t about me.

Life isn’t about me being not inconvenienced at work. Life isn’t about playing it safe. Life isn’t about feeling secure. Life isn’t about being the best. Life isn’t about what I believe will give me the most personal satisfaction. Life isn’t about being served in the ways I believe I deserve to be served. Life isn’t about being afraid to live up to my own personal responsibility.

What it all boils down to is this. I’m tired of living me for me. To be honest, I’m tired of people around me living me for me as well, but that’s not my concern.

I want to live a life of me for you. Replace the word “you” with whomever you wish…

me for jesus
me for ryanne
me for family
me for friends
me for co-workers
me for cedarcreek.tv attenders
me for the poor
me for the needy
me for you.

I mean, when you take a good deep look at yourself, and I mean really look… can you think of a time when living selfishly panned out? Was it worth it? Now, take a look at when you did something in service to someone or something… wasn’t that infinitely more gratifying? I know it is for me. Because really, it seems like the most personally gratifying moments, those that we are so desperate for when we’re living a me for me life, come a lot more often, and in much more intense ways when you live exactly opposite… in a me for you life.

We’ve got it all wrong, and it’s been this way for way too long. I’m not waiting any longer to make a change in my own personal life. I don’t believe for a second that it’ll be easy, or I’ll ever be perfect. Change doesn’t work like that. It’s one foot in front of the other. One more moment an hour that goes in the right direction. Small victories are what gets me by.

It’s time to start tipping the scales in the right direction.