I'm selfish. I like to think I'm selfless, but more often than not, I think I'm just selfish. I was selfish today. I worked myself into a funk over nothing really, and it was quite ridiculous.
So often in my head I feel an emotion or attitude, and don't fully process why or where it came from. I know that's odd, one should be aware of why one feels something, know one's motivation for feeling a certain way. But sometimes, I just work myself into a funk, and don't even know where it originated. Usually when that happens, I come to the realization that the emotion or attitude originated in selfishness.
Andrew asks questions about everything, and when I'm upset, it's incredibly frustrating necessary. You can't fix something until you know the cause of it, and he forces me to pinpoint the cause. Only after probing from my husband (to help him understand what was going on with me) was I fully able to understand the root of my funk. Long story (kind of) short, my husband helped me this morning, encouraged me, held me, and forgave me for my selfish attitude.

Then you know what my husband did? He left. He took Jonah to go clean my car, and enabled me to have some peacful, quiet time with my Father. That's what's missing. I get so caught up in babies crying, diaper changing, cleaning, laundry, etcetera, that my time with my Savior isn't quality. I'm absorbed with myself and my own life so much, that time with God is forced, it's rushed, and it's evident. I'm focusing on me, not God, trying to do it on my own. But I can't do it on my own. I was reading out of Romans in The Message just now...

"Those who trust God's action in them find that God's Spirit is in them—living and breathing God! Obsession with self in these matters is a dead end; attention to God leads us out into the open, into a spacious, free life. Focusing on the self is the opposite of focusing on God. Anyone completely absorbed in self ignores God, ends up thinking more about self than God. That person ignores who God is and what he is doing. And God isn't pleased at being ignored." (Romans 8:6-8)

In Jesus Christ, we are forgiven for our sin, our selfishness. But we have to accept that forgiveness. We have to turn our eyes to God, and embrace what the Spirit is doing in us. I'm quick to focus on myself, rather than turning my focus to Christ. I essentially ignore God to think of myself. But I can't do life on my own. Life with God is still sinful. I am still sinful. But by focusing on myself, I am just ignoring the saving grace that comes only from my Father.

"But for you who welcome him, in whom he dwells—even though you still experience all the limitations of sin—you yourself experience life on God's terms. It stands to reason, doesn't it, that if the alive-and-present God who raised Jesus from the dead moves into your life, he'll do the same thing in you that he did in Jesus, bringing you alive to himself? When God lives and breathes in you (and he does, as surely as he did in Jesus), you are delivered from that dead life. With his Spirit living in you, your body will be as alive as Christ's!" (Romans 8:10-11)

God lives and breathes in me! What do I have to be in a funk about?! He has delivered me from the dead life of sin, and made me alive in Christ. When I turn my focus to Him, all other things fall into perspective. With my eyes on God, self-absorption fades away, as well as the importance of all the trite little things that rouse my selfishness.

Father, forgive me for not readily turning my eyes to you, for ignoring you to focus on myself. I am a sinner, and I desire to live on Your terms. Help me to focus on you with joyful anticipation, knowing that "every detail in our lives of love for God is worked into something good."

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