The battle of self

There once was a little boy who always took the biggest and best of everything for himself. Whether it be cake or pie or some other yummy food, he always raced to make sure he got the best. Well, one day his mother decided to teach him a lesson. She had his aunt make all kinds of delicious treats, but the ones that looked the best were hollow inside or filled with sour flavors. Of course the little boy learned his lesson and never took the biggest and best again. Sometimes I wish the battle with self was quite so easy to fight. Wherever you look, there always seems to be that struggle between our natural self-centeredness and the selflessness we aspire to. Then of course, you have the dueling "low self-esteem" vs healthy self-worth. On the one hand we've been taught (somewhere along the way) that putting yourself down is necessary to putting others first, or maybe that viewing yourself as "enough" is part of a healthy self-concept. Where is the balance? You've probably heard the saying that, just as the middle letter in the word sIn is "I", so self is the root of all evil. So, what to do? Well, guess I better just start trying harder to think of others more and myself less, just ignore my own needs, and put myself down. Oh, but then I feel rather worthless. Hmm, well in that case maybe I should be more assertive and stand up for my rights, reminding myself what a special person I am. Oops, back to being self-centered again. Ack, this is so hard! How can I get a good balance between talking care of myself and yet still being self- less and putting others first? How can I balance my self-esteem?

    Well the answer I've discovered as I've struggled with this is simple. You can't. In some sense or another, all the extremes I mentioned above are still focused on self. It's all about me and what I'm doing good or bad, how I feel, and how I appear to others. It seems to me that there is only one escape from this viscous cycle: to be made Christ-centered. Notice I said "made", because it's not even something you can do yourself. Christ alone must do it. All the good behavior in the world can't change a sinful heart. All of our efforts in this regard are pretty pointless. As Pastor Lee Vendon puts it, the presence of Jesus in your life simply pushes self and the bad habits right out of your life. Being filled with the presence of Jesus is the only thing that can conquer self. Another illustration I heard recently asked how you could get all the air out of a glass without shattering it. The only way is to fill it with water. The water displaces the air in the glass. Jesus is the water of life, and only He can displace the "self" in our life. 

   Make no mistake, we all know that the battle against self is difficult and daily. No one is going to get it completely figured out this side of heaven (least of all me). But, I can make the daily choice to seek Jesus - his friendship and presence - and to ask Him to help me learn to lean on Him a little more each day. The concept is really quite revolutionary, but the daily habit can seem unimpressive, and many days even ineffective. But never underestimate it, the power of keeping our eyes on Jesus, focusing on that relationship, finding pure joy and peace in His company.