SELF-absorbed

Don’t be selfish; don’t try to impress others. Be humble, thinking of others as better than yourselves. – Philippians 2:3 NLT 

I have a list of texts I have sent to friends and loved ones which end with my request for their response. It seems that we have all become too busy with our own agendas to take proper time and response to others. Are they too SELF-absorbed to answer ME?

The worst offenders on MY list are those I care about most. (Why don’t they answer ME?) Really, I would have called them, but they are always so busy and it seems I can never find a good time for them that works into MY own busy schedule.

In fact, what I would most prefer is more PERSONAL contact and time just for ME and them in person… but that never seems to happen. Really, I need a hug now and then. It seems no one in available for such intimate things in these busy days and lonely nights.

Now for the personal disclaimer: I am most guilty of thinking of MY SELF before serving others in the way I communicate. YOU may add me to your list of those who do not reply instantly to your impersonal texts, emails, forwarded clever emails, facebook stuff, game requests, etc. I do, however, respond personally to telephone calls (unless you are a bill collector or a recording from one of our personal physicians, dentists, school principals & others).

We all seem to have gone off the deep end into the cloud and no message from our communicator can beam us up to the reality of the relationships of this brief life.

I And then there is:

“Social media” – an oxymoron for the internet where we can be superficially social.

It is a place where a “selfie” can define who we are at one instant and then another selfie for our next hours online.

What does all this have to do with living our life as a Christian in this world? you may ask.

The application is quite simple (and should be quite SELF-convicting to you and ME). Let’s look at our letter from Paul to the church at Philipi.

Philippians 2

English Standard Version (ESV)

Christ’s Example of Humility

So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, 2 complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind.

3 Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves.

4 Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.

5 Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, 6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.

Have the same love, Paul advises, as Christ Jesus, who as God humbled Himself to men as a servant.

Do you empty yourSELF as did our Lord?

How can we claim Christ, while we witness that we are too busy for our loved ones?

Therefore, what should we do?

Be a loving wife – a loving husband – in Person, as if you were Christ Jesus and served your beloved in the same way He washed the feet of His Disciples.

Be a loving friend, even as Christ wept for Lazarus, dined with Martha and Mary and visited His dear friends in Person at every known opportunity. (Do you think that our Lord did not have other things to do on His important agenda?)

Be a loving friend like Paul and Peter and John, who all wrote from their hearts to their friends in many churches so many times as they traveled from place to place. The Apostles never forgot their friends, the saints of other churches, as they moved on in their mission, yet continued to pray for these beloved ones.

Be a listener to those who cry out to you for help. Think how many times Jesus paused in an unexpected place to engage the heart and soul of one who cried out.

Help me, their eyes say. Help me, their silence speaks. Help my emptiness (even their ‘selfie’ stares into your scrolling heart).

Have we become, even as those claiming the love of Christ, so busy with our SELF-image of what a ‘christian’ ought to be that we seldom take the time to relate to one another as we would have our Lord love us?

I offer no answer for us – we, the SELF-proclaimed ‘christians’ who look to others just like everyone else. (Perhaps a little SELF-examination through scripture and prayer would be in order.)

I will suggest one possible snare into which we ought not fall as we get so caught-up in the rush and impersonal ‘social’ habits of these last days. It is from the Apostle Paul’s caution for the church of the next generation in his letter to Timothy.

2 Timothy 3English Standard Version (ESV)

Godlessness in the Last Days

But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty.

2 For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, 3 heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, 4 treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, 5 having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power.

Paul is speaking of NON-Christians; however he warns how such godless people and behaviors easily creep into contact with believers (and he has some unequivocal advice about these relationships).

Avoid such people. 6 For among them are those who creep into households and capture weak women, burdened with sins and led astray by various passions, 7 always learning and never able to arrive at a knowledge of the truth.

Perhaps the time has come in our own busyness to examine the quality of our love we so flippantly and familiarly overlook in our responses to loved ones – especially in our heartless blind eyes so evident, so near and so frequent in our ‘personal’ devices and ‘social’ communication.

Is anyone listening? (Please comment.)