I love to watch people who are warm, friendly and at ease in a group.   They amaze me because I am so not that way.  I can suck the life out of a conversation and put even the most gifted conversationalist ill at ease!  It's true, I'm a social blackhole!  I've lived through the agony of it more than once.  I am painfully introverted.   (O.K., maybe I'm being a little bit dramatic...but occassionally this has been true.)

I understand that shyness is a part of the way God made me; I can live with that.  And yet I have never been comfortable with the self-centeredness that introversion suggests.  I can't help but feel that I've tipped the scale from acceptable, God given individuality to selfish, consuming introspection.

Just look a look at the definition of an introvert.

Introverted:   interested more in your own feelings, thoughts, and motives than in other people and the world around you; turned into yourself or pulled back inside a larger part

Contrast that with:

Matt. 16: 24 Then Jesus said to his disciples, “If any of you wants to be my follower, you must turn from your selfish ways, take up your cross, and follow me." 

I Cor. 10:24 "Don’t be concerned for your own good but for the good of others."

I Cor. 10:33  "I, too, try to please everyone in everything I do. I don’t just do what is best for me; I do what is best for others so that many may be saved. "

Phill. 2:4 "Don’t look out only for your own interests, but take an interest in others, too."

Luke 9:23 Then he said to the crowd, “If any of you wants to be my follower, you must turn from your selfish ways, take up your cross daily, and follow me."

Matt. 16:25 "If you try to hang on to your life, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for my sake, you will save it."

Gal. 5:24 "Those who belong to Christ Jesus have nailed the passions and desires of their sinful nature to his cross and crucified them there."

Gal. 6:14 "As for me, may I never boast about anything except the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. Because of that cross, my interest in this world has been crucified, and the world’s interest in me has also died."

Matt. 10: 39 "If you cling to your life, you will lose it; but if you give up your life for me, you will find it."

Hmmmm.... I knew something was askew!    I thank Him for being faithful to gently lead his sheep as a shepherd.  This topic was recently explored by The Road not Chosen, go check it out for a different angle.  I'm off to Google "conversation skills".

"Father, continue to guide this heart of mine.  Lead me down paths of Your righteoussness.  May I not become so focused on my own thoughts and feelings that my passion and interest in others is overshadowed.  Cause me to live outside of myself.  Teach me what it means to live for You.  Amen"

THAT is what our sacrifice of ourselves should be--"full of life." Not desponding, morbid, morose; not gloomy chilly, forbidding; not languid, indolent, inactive; but full of life, and warmth, and energy; cheerful, and making others cheerful; gay, and making others gay; happy, and making others happy; contented, and making others contented; doing good, and making others do good, by our lively vivid vitality,--filling every corner of our own souls and bodies, filling every corner of the circle in which we move, with the fresh life-blood of a warm, genial, kindly Christian heart. Doubtless this requires a sacrifice; it requires us to give up our own comfort, our own ease, our own firesides, our dear solitude, our own favorite absorbing pursuits, our shyness, our reserve, our pride, our selfishness.
ARTHUR P. STANLEY