It Was Never About Me
My rawest human natural form is self centered. In the spirit of authenticity let’s keep it real. An ugly truth is down in my core I am the main character in my life story. I am of central importance. I am typically the hero. Those who prove to provide my narrative even the slightest upset are the villains. Those who are helping in my storyline and getting me closer to destiny as I see it, they are the dream team(I envision them with shiny capes and mask). The story revolves around me. My husband and my kids are a part of my central story. They are an extension of me. Collective “pieces” to my happy ending. They are to fit in neatly and tightly into my fairytale. I have rise and falls of climax in the story. The plot shifts and moves but one thing remains…it’s all about me!
Are you judging me? Tell the truth. You are! Little bit… well, how about a moment of reflection, how about you? Are you a part of a greater story? Or does the story begin and end with you? Are you simply a character or are you the character? Are you central to every theme and the subject of all dialogue? When it is all about you do all roads lead to your happiness? Will it ever cost me for my own gains? Will it ever cost me for someone else’s gain or even growth? Am I laying the foundation for a generation I will never meet to reap the fruits from my labor? As much as my human natural selfish nature believes the sun rises and sets on me and my story, there are billions of stars and grains of sand, and depth of ocean and vastness of sky that would prove different.
The truth is, as inflated as I may initially sound this is us all. Allow someone to cut you off while you are pressed in traffic. Or that person ordering all of that food and asking an endless stream of the questions in front of you causing you discomfort and delay. We can go deeper, the person who hurts you. You have a right to feel all that you feel but at what point do you consider what led to their broken decision? Let’s go deeper. The unanswered prayer, the person who was not healed? The dream unfulfilled. The person who passed away. What do we think when there is a fracture in our storyline? If we are central and all roads lead to us how do we reconcile disappointment? How do we resolve a life with pain?
If it is all about us it seems useless. All road’s should lead to my delight or my gain. Even this thinking is faulty. What was good at 19 may not be so at 39 yet one may impact the other. This universe is vast. There are various planets. The ocean reminds me of the vastness of the world and the small yet significant role I play in the story. My father made a bold and brave decision in his twenties that had far reaching implications for the generations to come. He followed Gods lead and left all that was comfortable risking all he ever knew to create a new life. Children he had yet to meet and grandchildren he could not foresee benefited from on man’s risky, life altering yes. My dreams, disappointments and detours have implications wider and greater than little me.
Those we admire in history lived lives with courage that changed a world beyond their own. Thirty three years of Jesus walking the earth and there is this moment of climax in the story. A defining moment that changed not just one thing but everything for all eternity. There is this powerful portrait in the Bible specifically in the Gospel of Mark the 14 chapter 36 verse. The power is not in the fight but the sweetness of the surrender. Don’t misunderstand me! It is a bloody, costly surrender. A yielding that would end in the exchange of the life of Christ for ours. How did God say no to his own son? Why could he not choose another way. Jesus declared his supremacy in that “Abba, Father, all things are possible for you”, it is true. All things are possible for God. So why not deliver his son? My heart’s true question is why didn’t he save my son? Why did my son have to die? You can do all things God… why not this? I don’t know that this loaded question will ever have a sufficient substantial answer while I am still on earth. I don’t know that I will care to pose the question in heaven. I do know a little further in the text Jesus states “but let the scriptures be fulfilled( Mark 14:49)”. My son is not the savior of the world but he was my world. There we go again… the peoples and things circling around this orbit that revolves around me. The truth is we do have an author(Hebrews 12:2), we are clay, we have a potter. Our lives are not simply our own design. May the posture of my heart, my life and all I “think” belongs to me yield to the greater story. Not my will but God( my author, my potter and my creator) your will be done.
