How to Know When You Are Being Selfish
Selfishness is far easier to see in someone else than it is to identity in ourselves. It can slide in subtly, unannounced. It might keep quiet, hoping to remain unnoticed. Yet even before we identify it, it begins to turn our hearts. Our focus always paves a road to something, and selfishness inherently pulls our attention to ourselves—and away from our purpose to praise God. A selfish focus will always result in our living less than the life God invites us to.
Our selfish tendencies are more prevalent that we’d like to admit. Take the words of C.S. Lewis in his poem “As the Rain Falls”: “I have never had a self-less thought since I was born.” In reflection of this admission, James Bryan Smith wrote, “Even at our best, Lewis believed, we are selfish. Our noble acts, our highest virtues, are still tainted with self-interest.” So how do we become more aware of when we are being selfish so we can address it quickly?
Am I being selfish?
First, we can look for evidence of a heart distracted from our purpose and identity in Christ. We might spend some alone time with God and ask ourselves some honest questions.
Am I being authentic and vulnerable with those around me?
Am I available and interruptible to the people in my life?
Am I engaged and present in my relationships?
Where do I direct the praise?
When I am being selfish, I close myself off a bit to others. I show just the best parts, the things that draw positive attention, and keep the things God is still working out in me out of sight. Selfishness stands in the way of authentic community—the type that we seek to build in our neighborhood—because it deters me from being open and vulnerable. To quote James Bryon Smith again, “Admitting the truth of who we really are is the first step to building real community.”
When I am selfish with my time, I see interruptions as annoyances rather than opportunities to gift my availability and build connection. Opportunities come often to show through the way I notice, listen, and value those near me that God treasures and pursues each of us. But I miss these opportunities to reflect the love so freely given to me if I can’t embrace interruptions.
The health of my relationships is likewise a good indicator of how selfish I have been. Do I show up relationally? Am I really present when I am physically present? Relational connections hang out on a surface level until we are willing to go deeper, to bring our true selves, to see beyond ourselves.
Our fourth question, where do I direct the praise? is a sure gage for where we are directing our gaze. Do we seek for ourselves praise that should truly be turned heaven-ward? When praise is unduly given to us, do we redirect it back to God? Do we embrace our purpose to declare His glory (Psalm 145:10), to make His name famous?
This morning I read the beautifully miraculous story of a blind beggar being healed in Acts chapter 3. Let’s pick up the story in verse 7:
Peter held out his right hand to the crippled man. As he pulled the man to his feet, suddenly power surged into his crippled feet and ankles. The man jumped up, stood there for a moment stunned, and then began to walk around! As he went into the temple courts with Peter and John, he leapt for joy and shouted praises to God.
When all the people saw him jumping up and down and heard him glorifying God, they realized it was the crippled beggar they had passed by in front of the Beautiful Gate. Astonishment swept over the crowd, for they were amazed over what had happened to him.
Dumbfounded over what they were witnessing, the crowd ran over to Peter and John, who were standing under the covered walkway called Solomon’s Porch. Standing there also was the healed beggar, clinging to Peter and John.
With the crowd surrounding him, Peter said to them all, “People of Israel, listen to me! Why are you so amazed by this healing? Why do you stare at us? We didn’t make this crippled man walk by our own power or authority. The God of our ancestors, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, has done this.
What strikes me about this story is that both the beggar and Peter seamlessly pointed all the glory to God. There was no question in either of their minds Who had touched, Who had healed. The beggar, first stunned and silent as the gravity of the miracle settled in, then exploded with joy uncontainable and praise that overflowed. His praise was rightly directed towards God, not the vessels through whom God’s healing power flowed. Peter quickly deflects the awed attention of the crowd from himself and redirects it to God, the Healer.
Directing the praise to God was not just a one-time-decision for Peter, but a rhythm evident in the way he lived his life. He practiced it over and over, living into his purpose to praise the Name above all Names. Peter and James were both arrested after the miraculous healing of the blind beggar. Let’s take a peek at what unfolds at this point of our story:
Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, answered, “Respected elders and leaders of the people, listen. Are we being put on trial today for doing an act of kindness by healing a frail, crippled man? Well then, you and everyone else in Israel should know that it is by the power of the name of Jesus that the crippled man stands here today completely healed!
Acts 4:8-10 TPT
Peter then continues declare that Jesus has the sole power to save each of us.
In verse 13 we read that
The council members were astonished as they witnessed the bold courage of Peter and John, especially when they discovered that they were just ordinary men who had never had religious training. Then they began to understand the effect Jesus had on them simply by spending time with him.
The secret for addressing our selfishness
Is this the secret to the addressing the selfishness inside each of us? To simply spend time with Jesus. Walking out our everyday lives in sync with Him? Letting His gaze penetrate the deepest parts of our hearts? Watching and listening and learning, then imitating and growing and becoming?
You and I are each on our own inherently selfish. We can’t help it. We can try, and try, and try to fight it, to be good, to go a different direction, but we will inevitably fail. We simply are not made to be good through our own efforts.
Yet as we draw near the One who is holy and radiant and absolutely perfect, the things that cannot exist in His presence begin to melt away—our self-serving motivations, our self-directed attention, our self-dismissal and self-denial that still has self at the center.
Forming a habit of time with Jesus
Do you wish that spending time with Jesus was something you did daily but find that it’s hard to make the habit stick? Do you long to live into your purpose to praise the One who is holy, and true, and infinitely good? Do you want to more quickly realize when you are being selfish, more readily see beyond yourself, and more fully experience the richness of community with those you live near?
Healthy habits take time to develop, and I invite you to spend the next 30 days intentionally developing life-giving rhythms that will cultivate a missional mindset. My devotional, Cultivating a Missional Life: A 30-Day Devotional to Gently Help You Open Your Heart, Home, and Life to Your Neighbors, offers bite-sized readings, questions to ponder that encourage real talk between you and God, and additional Scripture verses and study questions that can be used for self-reflection or group-discussion.
In less than 5 minutes a day you can begin to shift your focus from our natural bent towards ourselves to one that sees your neighbors from the vantage point of being near Jesus. Together we will learn to lean into Christ, invite His deep work in our hearts, and live in a way that lets the things God is doing inside us ripple out beyond us.
Today, March 23, through March 29, the Kindle version of Cultivating a Missional Life is just $0.99. If you’d like to preview the book, you may get a free download of the first week of devotions anytime. Let me know here where to send your unlock code!
As we close today, I invite you to pray this prayer with me. It’s the one written in blue pen in my journal, and I begin my daily morning routine by repeating these words:
You may have it all, Lord, every part of my heart, every thought that beats within, the tension in all my questions, my self-righteous, self-pitying temptations.
P.S. Did you know The Uncommon Normal is also a podcast? Tune in on Apple Podcasts, iHeartRadio, or Spotify.
Change your actual life in less than 5 minutes per day!
You can change your actual life in less than 5 minutes a day because baby steps truly can change the trajectory of your life. If you want 2021 to be the year you actually start living on mission in your neighborhood, this little book (available as a paperback and on Kindle) will help you get there. Each of the 30-day devotions takes but a few minutes to read, but they will lead to lasting life change.
If you’d like to check out Part 1 of the devotional FREE and also gain access to the rest of the missional living resources I’ve created for you in the new For You library, let me know here where to send the unlock code!
