THEM > (part one)
If you could wake up tomorrow and be anything, what would you be? Who would you be?
When I hear those questions, I think of what I want, not what I need. I think about who I want to be, not who I need to be. Here’s what I need to be, and here’s who we all need to be: selfless.
Why are we so selfish?
Selfishness is our default setting. We naturally think about ourselves first. Selfishness is hard-wired into us. Every experience we’ve had, we’ve experienced in our own skin and through our own eyes.
In the book of Genesis, God made Adam and Eve. God made them absolutely perfect. When Adam opened his eyes, the first thing he saw was God. That’s how perfect the world was. They were perfect people placed in a perfect world. A perfect, sinless world.
God placed Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden. It was paradise. Pure bliss. In the garden, there was an abundance of trees decorated with all the fruit they could ever need. They could indulge in any of these fruits, except for the fruits from the tree in the middle of the garden.
I’m guessing you know how this story ends. If you don’t, then here’s a spoiler: they ate from the one tree they were forbidden to eat from, and sin fled into the world. The fruit looked good, so they ate it. They thought it would taste good, so they ate it. They thought it would make them better, so they ate it. Why would they do something so foolish?
We should be asking ourselves the same question.
Adam and Eve had a choice. They could trust the word of God, or they could disobey Him. In the center of the garden, at the center of their lives, they had a choice. They chose themselves over God. They chose to fill their hunger with food that was never going to fill them. We have all made the same foolish mistake before.
When we’re being selfish, we want to feel good. We think what we’re doing will improve our lives. We want all these things that we think will make us look good or feel good. All these desires can consume us and destroy us, and even more so if we put them at the center of our lives.
What is at the center of your life?
Are you at the center of your own life?
For your own sake, I hope you’re not. The worst thing that you can do is center your life around yourself. We can’t do this alone. We are sinners who desperately need our Father. When you center your life around yourself, you’re putting God on the sidelines. You might even be kicking Him off the team. But we so desperately need Him at the center. With everything that’s in me, I’m telling you that we need God more than we need absolutely anything else. Even more than we need to breathe. We need God right at the center of our lives because anything else we put there will fail us. We need God right at the center of our lives because He gives us life. What we build our lives around is vital. God wants to be at the center of our lives. And what could be better than building your life around the God of the universe? The God who made you. The God who hears you. The God who never changes. The God who never fails. The God who loves you through every storm and under every circumstance.
If we want God to be at the center of our lives, we have to let go of ourselves. We have to let go of our pride. We have to let go or our love for the world and the things of this world. We have to let go of ourselves and latch onto the love our Father has lavished upon us.
Will you center your life around Him?
The quality of your life depends on the quality of the questions you ask.
Ellie Proctor 