I have been re-reading the book "Blue Like Jazz". I must admit that I spot read this book the first time around and if I am totally truthful about it... I only read it because other people that I admired said that they had read it. I know... shallow. But as I listened as Donald Miller opened up his little world, the theme that struck me the most was this idea of self love.
He mentions throughout the pages that his biggest problem is that he loves himself more than he loves anyone else. He makes reference to the fact that others in our world have the same issues and that if we could fix the BIGGEST problems of being so self-centered and self-focus that many of the other social issues would simply fade away.
As I kept coming back to this I kept asking myself the question... "Do I love me more than anyone else?" That's almost ridiculous to even ask because I am a Christian. My journal entry from February 1996 reminds me that I made a priority list that put God first, others second, and myself last. I wrote it down... in pen... so that makes it a fact of my personal reality. Or does it?
I have a wife and two amazing daughters... surely I put them before myself. On the inside, I have committed my life to serving other people... by default I surely put their lives before my own... don't I?
God's Word says something about if I want to truly live then I must give up my own life for His life... and that is very loosely paraphrased. But how much of my day is all about me? What about those pleasure points throughout each day that are strictly designed by me, for me? At the core of everything I do... even when I do help someone else, is my motive to truly serve them or is there a part of it all that gratifies my inner man and could it be that part of me that even causes me to help someone else?
Is my greatest effort to serve God tied somehow to a benefit that I may receive? Miller says this is treating God like a slot machine... we pull the arm down in hopes of getting lucky in the eyes of God. That makes me tired. It is exhausting to try to fill a day full of things all about me. I'm tired of being tired.
God... please help me tomorrow to not feed my own ego. Help me tomorrow to be a real man after your own heart. After all, this story has many characters and I am not the main one.
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