Selfish Tendencies

This last week I read the book ‘Blue like Jazz’. I think one of the things I felt God draw to my attention was these few lines.

“I hear addicts talk about the shakes and panic attacks and the highs and lows of resisting their habit, and to some degree I understand them because I have had habits of my own, but no drug is so powerful as the drug of self. No rut in the mind is so deep as the one that says I am the world, the world belongs to me, all people are characters in my play. There is no addiction so powerful as self-addiction.” Donald Miller

I know that I can be self absorbed. I do things for myself all the time. I think about myself more than anyone else, and sometimes I even think the world around me is mostly about me. I may not actually have those exact thoughts, I may not think I think those things, but when I look at my actions, I see they are saying I think I am more important.
The next line that really made me think was said when Don asked someone how he could continue being so kind and serve others when they kept abusing his servant hood.

“ ‘Don,’ he said ‘If we are not willing to wake up in the morning and die to ourselves, perhaps we should ask ourselves whether or not we are really following Jesus.’ ”

This to me is an interesting way of looking at life. God had been challenging me a bit to help out and serve around the house, and this helped me see it from a new perspective. How can I consider myself a Christian, if I am being selfish all the time? I know I am not perfect, and I wont be able to do everything perfect, but it is something for me to think about. Serving doesn’t come naturally to me most of the time. I have to think about it, or make a conscious choice to step outside myself and do something for someone else. I wish it could be easy, but then it wouldn’t be character building. So God… we’ll just have to wait and see how long it takes me to learn this lesson. I’ll probably be learning how to be selfless until I die.