selfishness Archives - Marissa Henley

The Most Selfish Thing I Do

March 2, 2015 by Marissa 1 Comment

I do a lot of selfish things. I talk too much and interrupt people. I throw adult-style, sophisticated temper tantrums when things don’t go my way. I spent way too much time and money caring for myself, my reputation and my stuff. I’ve known this for a long time.

But recently, I realized that there’s another way selfishness manifests itself in my life. Every day. Sometimes every hour.

I worry.

I worry about myself. I worry about other people. I worry about the weather, about the future, about the past. And what is at the root of almost all of these worries? Me.

Why do I worry about my future? Because I don’t want to experience suffering. I try to figure out a way around hardship, because I don’t like it when life is difficult or sad or confusing. I want an easy, happy life.

Sometimes, worry masquerades as concern for others. But it’s mostly about me. I worry about my husband, because I want him to be perfect so I don’t have to struggle in our marriage. I worry about my children, because I don’t want to experience the pain of their bad choices. I worry about my friend with cancer, because I will be sad if she dies. I worry about the weather, but only when it is going to interfere with my plans. I worry about world events that might someday impact me and my family.

Me. Me. Me. Me. Me.

Seeing the depth of selfishness associated with my worrying helps me to see why the Bible tells us not to worry. Over and over again: do not fear, do not be anxious about anything, do not worry about tomorrow.

The Lord knows that when we are worrying, we are focused on ourselves. He wants us to be focused on Him, trusting Him, accepting what He gives with a peaceful heart. He knows that what we need more than a happy, easy life is a quiet heart that is resting in Him.

You keep him in perfect peace

whose mind is stayed on you,

because he trusts in you.

Trust in the LORD forever,

for the LORD GOD is an everlasting rock.

Isaiah 26:3-4

Broken Hearts

August 17, 2008 by Marissa 4 Comments

My pastor had recently been asking us the question, “Does your heart break for the same things that break God’s heart?” This has been a very convicting question for me. When left to my own devices, these are some of the things that break my heart:

Not getting what I want
Not getting what I want when I want it
Having to struggle or suffer
People not liking me
My children inconveniencing me with their disobedience
My children running a fever on days I have something fun to do

The common theme: Me. My way. My comfort.

If I were going to feel brokenhearted over things that break God’s heart, the list would look more like this:

My sin
People who don’t know Christ
The sick, the lonely, the poor, and the outcast

Therefore, I would trade my sorrow over suffering for joy in suffering for God’s glory. My sadness over not getting my way would become trust in God’s goodness and provision. Rather than feel inconvenienced by my children’s disobedience, I would have an earnest desire to share the Gospel with them. My heart would mourn my sinfulness, ache to share Christ with those who don’t know Him, and overflow with compassion for those in need.

A month ago when I first heard our pastor ask this question, my heart had been breaking over something that I wanted and didn’t get. And before worship, we had heard from a missionary who was trying to raise money to buy Bibles. He wanted give to them to people who desperately wanted to read God’s Word but did not have it available to them. God confronted me with my selfishness that morning. It was clear to me that my heart was not breaking over the things that break God’s heart.

Emotions are tricky. It is hard to turn off ungodly sorrow and trade it for godly sorrow. But I am reminded of John 15:7: If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. I want to be abiding so deeply in the Father that my will is intertwined with His. I want to trust so fully in His goodness and provision that when I don’t get my way, my immediate response is to know it wasn’t best for me. (Even if I really, really thought it was.)

I want my heart and God’s heart to be breaking over the same things. And I’ve got a long way to go.

Decreasing, the application part

November 7, 2007 by Marissa 1 Comment

Several years ago (before kids), a friend who had children made a comment to me about how I wouldn’t truly realize how selfish I am until I had kids. I remember being a little offended at the time, thinking she was wrong, and that I had a pretty good idea about how selfish I really was. It may not be true of everyone, but in my life, my friend was right. Before kids, I could usually make things work out the way I wanted them to. There was some sacrifice involved in marriage, but I am an excellent manipulator and a skilled arguer, so I could usually get my husband to come around to my way of thinking. But I’ve met my match when it comes to my kids. They are not concerned at all with what I want. So one of the toughest parts about being a mom for me is that multiple times a day, I have to die to my own desires. Sometimes it is downright painful. And too often I start to resent it.

This was definitely true during the last half of October. Here’s a recap . . . October 18, Will started running a fever. There were 8 days until my birthday, and I always have a sick kid on my birthday, so I was actually glad for my kids to catch the bug then so they could be healthy in time to give me a happy, carefree birthday. After Will had been sick for 4 days, Christopher caught it. By this point, I was starting to lose patience with being at home, and now I had two sick children. Christopher’s virus was short-lived, but Will’s dragged on for over a week.

When I woke up on the morning of my birthday, facing my 8th day of being confined at home with a sick child, I prayed that God would keep me from self-pity, from feeling that I deserved to have a fabulous day just because it was my birthday. I even gave this line to a friend who called that morning to wish me happy birthday and was appropriately sympathetic about Will still being sick. I thought, “Oh, no, I don’t need your sympathy. I’m super-spiritual mom, queen of unselfishness, and I certainly don’t need to be celebrated on the day I graced the world with my presence.”

As it turned out, the day was a disaster. A mere twenty minutes after I got off the phone with my friend, both boys and I were crying. Later in the day I yelled at Christopher, “Why are you acting like this?!? Are you just trying to make sure I don’t have a good birthday?!?” And anyone else who called me that day got a hefty dose of self-pity and requests for major amounts of sympathy. (But, for the record, my birthday got a lot better after Noel got home from work.)

The boys were healthy for a day and a half, and then on Sunday afternoon, Christopher woke up from his nap with a temperature of 102. I saw all my plans for the week (including Halloween) crumble, along with any bit of emotional stability I had left. I still feel guilty about how I was much more concerned about myself that afternoon than I was about my sick child. I hit an all-new low at the pediatrician’s office the next afternoon when he ruled out anything we could get an antibiotic for and mentioned that it could be mono. (Thankfully, it wasn’t, and he was even better in time to enjoy Halloween.)

Why have I gone on and on about these two weeks of my kids being sick? Because the whole episode has shown me how difficult it is for me to muster the self-denial and unselfishness that motherhood requires. I am required to serve again and again without much gratitude in return. My needs and wants are trumped daily by my kids’ needs. I spend hours trying to teach them to obey, and then struggle to not take it as a personal offense when they do the opposite of what I’ve taught them. (A friend I was talking to on the phone got to overhear this comment last week: “Do you think it is a good idea to hit your brother in the face with a shoe? Really, that should be obvious.”)

One reason all of this is so difficult is that it brings me face-to-face with my sin. I can’t help but notice my selfish reaction to my kids being sick. I can’t ignore the irony when I am yelling at Christopher, “You need to get some self-control RIGHT NOW!!!!” I hardly ever had to apologize to my co-workers, but I have to seek my kids’ forgiveness on a regular basis.

The only answer I can think of is to ask God to change my heart so that I desire His glory more than my own. To pray that God would protect my kids from all my mistakes and that their lives would glorify Him, even if they don’t always make me look good. To saturate myself in God’s Word so that I will become more like Christ, who “did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant” (Philippians 2:6-7). Because I cannot muster the strength to fight my selfish desires on my own. If I am ever going to be able to put my kids ahead of myself not only in action, but also thought and motive, it will be by God’s grace alone.