By William
MacDonald
In the
pursuit of holiness there are few things more debilitating than occupation with
self. Those who look inside for victory are looking in the wrong place; they
invite disappointment, discouragement and defeat.
The world emphasizes
man and his potential. In its pathetic desire for recognition, popularity and
acceptance, the me-too church follows suit. It preaches secular humanism,
faintly disguised in evangelical language. Religious publishers rush into print
with a rash of new books on self-esteem. In a single visit to a Christian
bookstore, I came across the following titles:
Love
Yourself
The Art of
Learning to Love Yourself
Self-Love,
the Dynamite Force of Success
I'm OK,
You're OK
Who Says
I'm OK'?
A True View
of You
Make
Friends with Your Shadow
The Art of
Understanding Yourself
Understanding
Your Past, the Key to Your Future
My
Beautiful Feeling
You Can
Feel Good About Yourself
30 Days to
a Less Stressful You
You're
Someone Special
Do I have
to Be Me? (Living With Yourself and Liking it)
Only one
thin voice of protest appeared on the shelves. It was titled, Leave Yourself
Alone.
A great
deal of modern counseling turns the searchlight in on self. The patient is told
to examine his upbringing (with emphasis on his parents' colossal failures),
his thoughts, motives, fears, hang-ups and inhibitions (especially in the' area
of sex). As he talks out his problems in non-directive counseling, the answers
appear - or so it is alleged.
"The
Norwegian dramatist Ibsen tells the Story of Peter Gynt
going to a mental hospital and surprisedly finding
that no one in the place seemed crazy. They all talked so sensibly and
discussed their plans with such precision and concern that he felt sure they
must he sane. He spoke to the doctor about it. 'They're mad,' said the doctor.
'They talk very sensibly, I admit, but it is all about themselves.
They are, in fact, most intelligently obsessed with self. It's self----
morning,
"The
world is much like the hospital visited by Peter Gynt.
It seems sane enough until we realize that it is possessed with itself. All it
talks about are its feelings, its politics, its wars, its budgets, its money. The largest part of existence, God, is
unmentioned." (1)
It is
characteristic of people who suffer from mental, nervous or emotional disorders
that self is the center and circumference of their lives. Counseling techniques
that encourage them to engage in introspection serve only to intensify their
misery. You've heard the proverb: "Neurotics are people who build castles
in the air; psychotics are those who move into them; and psychiatrists are the
ones who collect the rent."
There are
two classic Bible passages that deal with selfism and
its remedy. The first is Psalm 77, which Bullinger
has outlined as follows:
Occupation
with self, vv.1-6
Its sure
result: .Misery, vv. 7-9
Occupation
with God, vv. 10-12
Its sure
result: Happiness, vv. 13-20
Someone
else has captioned these four sections:
Sighing
Sinking
Singing
Soaring
In the
first half of the Psalm Asaph is suffering from I
trouble, or an overdose of vitamin I. The first personal pronouns ( I, me, my) occur 22 times, whereas God is referred to only
13 times. The psalmist becomes so obsessed with self that he even questions the
goodness, grace and mercy of the Most High.
In the
second half, Asaph gets his eyes an the Lord. He
mentions God (nouns and pronouns) 24 times, and makes only three personal
references.
The second
Bible passage is Romans 7:9-25. After over 40 uses of the personal pronouns,
Paul groans, "O wretched man that I am!" He finds no victory in self.
Rather he confidently affirms, "I know that in me (that is, in my Flesh)
nothing good dwells." But at the end of the chapter, he turns away from
self and finds victory in the Lord Jesus Christ.
Looking
within for victory is like casting your anchor inside the boat; it guarantees
spiritual drift.
Self-occupation
makes a person forget the blessings of the Lord, and ungrateful for them. It
causes paralysis as far as effective service is concerned by reducing powers of
concentration and the quality of work. It makes one callously insensitive to
the needs of others.
The
self-centered person is a slave to his own emotions and feelings. He is
unattractive company as far as others are concerned. He wants to pour out his
litany of woe to an endless number of counselors and friends, desiring an
audience but spurning advice. He has a will of iron that resists change and
refuses to accept God's will. He is like the people whom the Lord describes in
Ezekiel 33:31,32:
“So they
come to you as people do, they sit before you as My
people, and they hear your words, but they do not do them; for with their mouth
they show much love, but their hearts pursue their own gain. Indeed you are to
them as a very lovely song of one who has a pleasant voice and can play well on
an instrument: for they hear your words, but, they do not do them.”
So much for the pathology of me-ism. How can a person beat it?
First, he
can turn from self-occupation to occupation with Christ (2 Cor.
O to be
saved from myself, dear Lord.
O to be
lost in Thee.
O that it
may be no more I
But Christ who lives in me.
He should
remember the true formula: Occupation with self brings distress. Occupation
with others brings discouragement. Occupation with Christ brings delight.
But someone
may object that a certain amount of self-examination is necessary, and is even
called for in the Bible. Granted, but, then he should follow McCheyne's rule: "For every look you take at yourself,
take ten looks at Christ." As an old hymn says, "How sweet away from
self to flee, and shelter in the Savior.
A second
thing a person can do is take a biblically balanced view of himself.
On the one hand he realizes that he is saved by the grace of God, forgiven,
justified and made fit for heaven. He stands before God in all the
acceptability of God's beloved Son. He is complete in Christ, an heir of God
and a joint heir with Jesus Christ. He is a unique creation of God and has a
distinct role to fulfill in life. He is of great value to God and this makes
him desire to be all that he can be for Jesus.
On the
other hand he acknowledges that in and of himself he is nothing (2 Cor.
A third suggestion. The self-centered person should lose himself in a life of service for
others. Those who find fulfillment are those who are so absorbed in helping
others that they have no time to be thinking about themselves. Fulfillment
comes from self-denial rather than self-occupation. This is what Jesus meant
when He said, "He who loves his life will lose it, and he who hates his
life in this world will keep it for eternal life" (John
He doesn't
waste time wishing that he was someone else. In spite of physical appearance,
handicaps or limited abilities, he accepts himself as God has accepted him and
says, "By the grace of God I am what. I am" (1 Cor.
15:10a). If there are things in life that cannot be changed, he accepts them
and thus finds peace. In the areas of life that are fixed by divine
sovereignty, complaining is sin and wishing it was different is futile.
Finally he
should avoid things that make him introspective - whether how- to books on self
esteem, seminars on possibility thinking, or
counseling that is self-directed instead of God-directed. What we want is to
forget self and concentrate on the Lord, who is worthy.
1.
Traveling Light, Eugene H. Peterson.