It's all about me

Let me start by saying that some of you won't get anything out of this post. For those of you that don't struggle with thinking about yourself first, stop reading. For those of you who don't take the biggest slice of pizza stop reading now. For those who have never gotten upset by not getting what you wanted for your birthday or Christmas please stop reading now, and you make me sick. Now that we have eliminated all of those nasty "good" people let me talk straight to those of you including myself that have the sickness, the sickness of selfishness. Oh yes I am gonna go there, my blog followers just went from a whopping 4 to maybe 1, my sister in law can't drop me because then we would have massive family drama. I will come right out and say it, I am selfish, and so are the rest of you, the people who stopped reading this post are just in denial. We all have been saddled with this instinctual impulse to only think about what we need and want. I call it a sickness or an infection because I think it can take over who we are. I have been noticing how prevalent this issue is in my life lately. I love my wife to death but there are times I find it very very hard to put her first and frankly sometimes I just don't. I am not proud of that, I am just being honest. My questions come from some deeper thinking. Why is it so easy to take care of myself first? How do I break this pattern of selfishness? The thing is, sometimes I am not aware that I am being selfish. How do we stop doing something that seems like a part of our human nature? Well I think that is exactly the right place to start, our human nature. Our flesh calls us to fill the me, me, me voice inside, but I know God is calling us to something different. Jesus says in Mark “If anyone wants to be first, he must be the very last, and the servant of all." Oh crap….how many times can we say we have tried that? I mean I try to be the greatest all the time, I haven’t as of yet been very successful at it, but that won’t keep me from continuing to try. But when was the last time I pursued true servanthood? Our culture is built on getting ahead of people and taking what is “yours”. I don't think God is calling us to be wimps, but I think if we were all servants things would look a lot different. What if the greatest leaders and church leaders were all amazing servants, because at the end of it isn't that what we all are anyways? How easy is it for us to pray and ask God to help us in our money troubles or marital conflict or other everyday issues. But then think of how many times we pray for God to take away our selfish desires. I know I don't pray that as much as I should and I am struggling with it! I think at least for me something inside is afraid of giving up my selfishness. There is a unknown with going out and being a servant and reaching out, if I just think about myself I can avoid that. If I just think about me I can stay safe in my little bubble, but I am missing out! So giving lip service to unselfishness is really easy but moving to action is much more difficult, almost like fighting our own human nature. Jesus gives me hope because he accomplished true servanthood. And if our Savior was willing to get on his hands and knees and wash his disciples feet, I think I can pursue servant hood as well. I know God can heal us of this sickness of selfishness, I think we just have to find the will to say yes Lord.

Welcome back from somewhere

Well well well, back at it again. I think that 3 posts in 2 months is great work people, so no more grumbling about my post frequency. You can say I have been a little busy, buying a house. leaving the country and so on. Ha see now you feel bad for thinking I was just being lazy. With so much going on I have not had a lot of time to gather my thoughts. As I near my 26th birthday I feel like its a great time for some reflection on where the last few months have taken me.

I just got back from spending 7 days in Guatemala City, Guatemala on a missions trip. It was truly a life changing experience and there as so many memories that I will take from the trip. But while I was there I could not help but think about some very problematic thoughts and questions I kept having. Why is my heart not like that of God's? Why can't I feel for the poor and the unfortunate? I have now in my life been on missions trips to Mexico, Costa Rica and Guatemala and each time I am blown away by how people live and their not so great situations. This bothers me, well of course it bothers us but there is something more to it for me. I get frustrated that it takes me going on a trip to feel for the needs of the struggling people. Now I know that this is part of a missions trip to spark our desire to help. But as of right now I am 0 for 2 on having missions trips make a permanent change in me. I am not saying they have not been impactful, because they have. But as soon after I get back to my comfort bubble here in MN you really wouldn't be able to see a difference in my life. One of my selfish goals through this blog is to inspire myself into some life changes, and this is one area I need some change. I would be fairly surprised if I am the only person who suffers from this disease of not caring. I feel that the church as a whole struggles in this area. Now we do send out missionaries and have wonderful ministries that help people in need. But what I am getting at here isn't about those things. Its about each of us in our hearts truly feeling for the less fortunate. And there very little chance that anyone will be able to convince me that the church in the US has been sensitive to this. We all cry and get emotional during the videos on Sunday morning and some of us get out the checkbook and give something to help the sad people in the video. Some of us get motivated and decide we will help on a missions trip and we go and serve. All of these things are great but my question is, do we truly have a change of heart? Should we spend only a few moments each year thinking and caring about the unfortunate? Or does God call us to change our way of thinking? To truly mirror his heart for the unfortunate I think something needs to change in us. I guess I think of it this way, while Jesus was on this earth who did he spend his time with? Let's see tax collectors, former prostitutes and fishermen. Not exactly a who who's list but he wasn't here thinking the way we think. He was here for the lost and abandoned. It bothers me that as of yet I haven't been able to see things that way. This isn't a lightswitch I can flip but I feel that maybe now at almost 26 I am willing to let him change my heart for the lost and abandoned. I am excited to see where that leads me. Here are some words I wrote down while in Guatemala that I think help explain how I feel.

Time to Understand

Lord give me courage when things seem to overwhelm me

Lord give me strength when I can no longer move

Lord give me joy even when I want to despair

Lord give me hope when I have nowhere to turn

There are times when I cant go on

But I wont take your help

There are times where you seem so far away

to hear my whispers for help

Lord give me what I need for each day and nothing more

Lord give me wisdom to know when others need to hear

"He loves you"

Lord tangle my heart with yours so I begin to fade away

There are times when I will say no

Because I am scared of where yes will take me

There are times I wont go because

I lack the faith to trust you

Lord in the moment's that I can't

Let me learn that you always can

I am too selfish at times to be

compassionate for the needy

Lord give me your heart for the unfortunate

At my best I am a broken vessel

Lord heal me and fill me up

Make my reliance on you total

And make my praise for you continuous

Lord thank you for showing me it takes everything