I am a selfish person.

I’ve spent much of my life defendin’ what is “mine”.  My time, my space, my way, my rights, my money, my happiness, my fulfillment, my, my, my.  Even when I consistently get my way, I’m rarely happy.  How can I be?  If I let my guard down, someone is bound to come along and try to bamboozle me, one way or another, possibly a friend, possibly a stranger, it could even by my husband or my children!

This is the curse of selfishness.

Everyone is the enemy when you are selfish.

I tend to get very cynical when I am at my most selfish.  A gift given to me is met with a suspicious eyebrow, “What do they want from me now?”  A good deed is met with a eyeball roll, “Now, I’ve got to do something nice for them!  Don’t they know, I don’t have time?!”  Somethin’ so innocent as a child crawlin’ up into my lap for “Momma cuddles” can turn into an irritation.  You know, I really just wanted five minutes of peace (which is untrue because I usually want much more...).

Is it so wrong to get the things that I want?  I mean, is that so terrible?  Well, the thing is, our wants have this way of multiplyin’ like rabbits.  It’s never enough.  Before I’d imagine, “Wow, life will be so much better when we…” or “I’d be so eternally grateful for a…” even, “I’ll never ask for another thing, God, if You’d just bless me with a…”  However, it never fails, I get that much coveted thing, be it a real object or more time or whatever, it is not long before my “gratitude” passes and I’ve got my eye on something else that I “really want”.

I receive Terri Maxwell’s “Mom’s Corner” newsletters and have been thoroughly blessed by them.  She recently did a series entitled “What about me?”  That series cut me to the spirit, I tell ya.  The message was, in a nutshell, “This isn’t your life, get over yourself.”

That’s the key, isn’t it?  It isn’t “my” life.  My life was filled with sin and condemnation.  Jesus bought and paid for my life, in full, with His blood.  I no longer belong to myself.  Just as an article of clothing I purchase from a store, remains no longer property of that store but mine.  It is mine to wash and wear as I see fit.  Before, I belonged to sin, but God has blessed me and called me His own.

So it isn’t “my time, my space, my way, my rights, my, my, my,” it is God’s time, God’s space, God’s way, God’s rights, His, His, His!  When I put in that perspective, I think of how wasteful I am of His precious time.  So much is wasted hording all that “I deserve”, and not enough about my Father’s work.  As a selfish mother, I will slave away, scrubbin’ ceilin’ to floor.  Then, when the kids take out their puzzles or want to color or paint.  I get irritated, “I just spent all day cleanin’!  Can’t the house stay clean for FIVE MINUTES??!!”  Now why did I have to slave all day?  Well, because I was too selfish to train my children how to clean the house and pick up after themselves.  It was just easier and quicker to “do it myself” (there’s that ol’ guardin’ of my time and my energy).  In the end, however, I have only cost myself more grief and frustration because when you’ve got three children, someone is always gettin’ into somethin’ that is gonna make a mess.  However, if I’d been an unselfish mother, I’d have patiently allowed my children to help while I clean, like they ask to anyhow, taken the time to teach them how to do a task just as good if not better than me.  I’d teach them to appreciate a job well done and contributin’ to instead of drainin’ from the family.  Then, when they drag out their things, I don’t have to get snippy and bent out of shape, because they know how to put their own things away!

It boils down to this, selfishness breeds only discontent.  Service to others, that’s the true path to peace.

Romans 6

1 What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? 2 God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein? 3 Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? 4 Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. 5 For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection: 6 Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin. 7 For he that is dead is freed from sin. 8 Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him: 9 Knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more; death hath no more dominion over him. 10 For in that he died, he died unto sin once: but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God. 11 Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord. 12 Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof. 13 Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God.    14 For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace. 15 What then? shall we sin, because we are not under the law, but under grace? God forbid. 16 Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness? 17 But God be thanked, that ye were the servants of sin, but ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you. 18 Being then made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness. 19 I speak after the manner of men because of the infirmity of your flesh: for as ye have yielded your members servants to uncleanness and to iniquity unto iniquity; even so now yield your members servants to righteousness unto holiness. 20 For when ye were the servants of sin, ye were free from righteousness. 21 What fruit had ye then in those things whereof ye are now ashamed? for the end of those things is death. 22 But now being made free from sin, and become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life. 23 For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.