Growing up in a Wesleyan movement, I was not raised in a culture of practicing the Lenten season. The thought was this: “One should constantly be living in a state of sacrifice and there should not be anything extra to sacrifice during a season.” I respect that, but in later years I’ve come to appreciate the discipline of memorializing the suffering of Jesus and paralleling that with some aspect of my personal life that could use attention.
Two Lenten seasons ago an area of my personal life had made itself very known in needing attention: selfishness. So, at the risk of over-grandiosity, I declared that I was going to “give up selfishness” for Lent. When I shared that with our pastor, his wry response was, “Let me know how that works out for you.” It was an appropriate comment in that giving up selfishness is like blue paint saying it’s going to give up blue for Lent. It’s in the DNA.
I found that Lenten sacrifice to be personally enriching and thankfully not smothered by its grandiosity. In fact, it actually served as a trailhead to a much longer journey. During that season, I realized I had an unhealthy grip on my personal agenda which manifested itself in many ways, particularly in nearly every conversation I would have with my wife, especially when talking about the family calendar.
And as you might expect, the endeavor to give up selfishness is not to be contained in a 40-day season. I continued to put into practice throughout the year the convictions from that Lenten season. At the dawn of 2023, looking for a fresh Bible study, I decided to study, well, selfishness. I didn’t pull a study off the shelf but created a body of Scriptures to explore using my trusty Thompson Chain Reference Bible.
Granted, the core of the gospel message is selfless living, but I wanted to let Scripture speak to me specifically on the subject of selfishness. I started with 12 passages, this grew to 29 passages and about 10 word studies. It’s in these passages that I saw examples of selflessness and selfishness; I saw nuances in instructions about selfless living; I saw subtle layers of selfishness that are more insidious than you might expect.
While I am still a work in progress, my outlook and hopefully my behavior have changed. My wife and kiddos serve as a built-in check for behavior change. Below are my biggest observations (the most prominent “layers”) that I continue to explore and use as fuel for the fire of refining in this journey—a journey that began as a Lenten season and hopefully has become a constant state of sacrificial living.
Observations:
1. Self-Denial
I had a point of realization in my study journey that I had no element of self-denial in my daily living. If I wanted chocolate, I ate chocolate. If I wanted a snack, I ate a snack. Moderation, yes. Self-denial, no. To authentically address selfishness through the lens of the gospel, self-denial is the forward tenet. Just the act of denying your desires, no matter how innocuous or harmful, is a Christ-like move.
2. Entitlement
This is the gateway drug to selfishness. And I think we all have our triggers to entitlement. For me, it was easy to feel entitled when I was in the epicenter of grief after losing my wife Dana to cancer in 2009. I would hear my mind say, “I’ve been through a lot, therefore …” But entitlement isn’t limited to grief. Feelings of unappreciation, or long work days, or simply being tired can become convenient rationalizations to do whatever I want to do.
3. Self-Absorption
This one had been lurking beneath the surface and caught me off guard. It also has been my deepest conviction point in this journey. The catalyst for this conviction came from spending a day at Asbury University during the spiritual outpouring that the campus experienced in February 2023. Nothing like a revival of repentance to help search and clear pockets of selfishness that have been growing undetected. In a moment of clarity while praying on that campus (see this blog post for more personal detail) I was able to pinpoint a specific time when my modern-day selfishness—the selfishness that brought on the recent conviction—took root. While navigating the early days of the diagnosis of my late wife Dana’s breast cancer, I had circled the wagons, and for good reason. It was a fight for survival, and if anything presented itself (activity, task, ministry need, etc.) it didn’t see the light of day in being considered. I likely circled the wagons even tighter when Dana passed away 10 years later. That journey gave me permission to live out of my inherent selfishness, a lifelong selfishness that was far greater than the average bear (I have datapoints to prove it, which is what got me to thinking about giving attention to this aspect of life two Lenten seasons ago). And from those early days of the diagnosis, through Dana’s death and moving forward, I have never re-opened that circle of wagons. I have become comfortable with self-absorption. If something was presented to do (social event, ministry need, church event, to offer a few examples), I ran it through a matrix of reluctance, anxiety, and even a bit of panic.
To interact with me you wouldn’t know this. In fact, as I’ve shared this journey, I have frequently heard the response “I would have never pegged you as selfish.” Reason being? I had become a functioning self-aholic (my word). I could generate enthusiasm and perhaps eventually come to embrace the event or need. But it would be a heavy lift.
Conclusion
The key phrase in this post is “a work in progress.” To borrow an overused analogy, I am being peeled like an onion, and I have many layers to go. Despite being raised by selfless, gospel-driven parents, I somehow managed to break the chain of selfless living. When I should have been infusing my developing brain with Jesus’ teachings on sacrificial love (which surrounded me through Sunday school lessons and exemplary living), I unfortunately kept my brain and those teachings separated. Maybe there is a reason why I am dealing with this now, deep in my adult life. My prayer is that these observations may help someone else avoid the trap.