Freedom Through Humility
“Selfishness is an ugly thing,” I stated softly as the boys and I rolled into the driveway. My oldest responded contemplatively with a thoughtful “Yes, it is….” while the younger two remained in silence demonstrating the solemnity and truth in those words. They have seen what selfishness has done in our lives and in the lives of others, and are learning to approach it with caution.
Satan teaches children at a young age that selfishness is good. The temporary pleasures, the sights and sounds and appetites of this world, call for their attention. It teaches them that selfishness brings satisfaction but, as children grow into adulthood, the nature of cause-and-effect reveals the ugliness of selfishness. Friendships are severed and loved ones are hurt. In the essence of selfishness, it tears apart relationships. Even in adulthood, we are blind to Satan’s insinuations that selfishness is good. It brings satisfaction, he says, until our eyes are open just long enough to catch a glimpse of its ugliness, its pain and emptiness.
Selfishness may manifest itself in apparent ways like pride and complaint and in not so apparent ways like discouragement, frustration, and worry. It can creep into your home through quarrels, discontentment, or resentment and manifest itself in your children through disobedience, laziness, and lying. And as parents, when we try to reprimand our children to not be so selfish, we sense the selfishness that resides within our own hearts and that, perhaps, the selfishness in our children was instilled from the example of their very own parents.
“I don’t really think of myself as selfish,” you may conclude. “I give generously of my time and resources and long to be a help and blessing to others.” These were my thoughts precisely. But my eyes began to be opened when I was wrongly accused and my character was assassinated. I was shocked to the core and deeply hurt. I tried to explain that my intentions were only good and that how I felt was actually quite the opposite of what was being claimed. My desire was to restore the relationship but, in the act of explaining, it only made the situation worse.
I struggled with the injustice, the lies, and strived to rectify it. How could my intentions be taken as evil? And then I realized that I am in fact evil. That there is nothing good in me. ”For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) nothing good dwells; for to will is present with me, but how to perform what is good I do not find. For the good that I will to do, I do not do; but the evil I will not to do, that I practice” (Romans 7:18-19). ”But we are all like an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are like filthy rags…” (Isaiah 64:6). In the light of the righteousness of God we more clearly see our unrighteousness, our selfishness. What a perfect antidote to selfishness—humility in the presence of God.
1 Peter 5:6-7 says to “humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time: casting all your care upon Him; for He careth for you.”
“He only is my rock and my salvation; He is my defense; I shall not be greatly moved” (Psalms 62:2).
Human nature naturally defends. It is inherent within us. We see it from the birth of mankind in the Garden of Eden. We excuse our behaviors and self-preservation, especially apart from the source of life, always leads to death. Self-preservation in the form of addictions have become more prominent with the introduction of technology through video games, pornography, social media, and materialism. Thoughts, addictions, and struggles in connection with technology are even more insidious because of the darkness in which it takes place, behind closed doors and in the hidden corners of your mind. In the secrecy is darkness but when we unveil the darkness of selfishness and pride by bringing it to the light in confession to God and confession to others, the power can no longer have its hold on you because in so confessing is humility exercised.
“Jesus said to His disciples, ‘If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it’” (Matthew 16:24,25). The cross leads to death. It leads to humiliation and pain. Jesus asks us to follow Him there. When we are wrongly accused, no explanations. No excuses. No defending. When we struggle with hidden sin, no explanations. No excuses. No defending.
Bring your deepest, darkest sins to the light and in this act of humility will we find freedom from the bondages of sin and selfishness. Lift your eyes to Jesus and away from yourselves and as we see God for who He really is, then will we see ourselves for who we really are. Do not let pride and selfishness come in the middle of that.
”Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself. Let each of you look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others. Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross” (Philippians 2:3-8).