03 December 2007

Sweet Selfishness

Luke 6:31 says, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." As a child, these words were driven into my stubborn head. The fighting between my three little sisters and I never ceased. As little girls, the squabbling sounded like, "Stop looking at me! Mom, she won't stop looking at me!" The older we got, the more it sounded like, "I can't believe you wore my brand new sweater to school without asking me!!" No matter the tiff, my mother would continue to reiterate, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."

This morning it was my turn to say these words. I'm not going to go into great detail, because as I look back on my earlier situation, I think that you all would find me a silly little girl to know the reason my feelings had been hurt. But none the less, as I left my house this morning, I had been offended by my roommate. In tears, I called multiple people to spill my guts to until finally my boyfriend Luke answered his cell phone.

As I poured my heart out to Luke, telling him about how my roommate had been so inconsiderate and rude, he listened patiently. In a very neutral way, Luke asked me if I had tried to compromise with her or ask her how she felt about the situation. "No," I thought to myself. I became very angry with Luke, feeling as if he was trying to take her side. "She is so rude and inconsiderate of my feelings! This has happened multiple times! The Bible says that we are supposed to do unto others as we would have them do unto us!" This frustrated him and after about ten minutes of arguing with each other, Luke said, "Look. I'm not picking her side. I understand what you are saying and I would have been offended too. All I'm saying is, were you treating her the way you would want to be treated? Look at it from her position. Should she live her life in accomodation to yours?"

With the same stubborn head that got me into trouble as a child so many times, I began to think about what my level-headed boyfriend had just pointed out to me. Here I was, trying to be all "Christian" and accusing my roommate of being insensitive to my feelings, when I realized that I was being a hypocrite. I should have been the bigger person, considered her feelings in the situation and treated her the way I would have wanted to be treated. I was thinking of myself as selfless, when I was the one being selfish. I absolutely hate being wrong and being wrong was staring me in the face.

If you read a little farther into Luke 6, verse 38 says, "Give, and you will receive. Your gift will return to you in full--pressed down, shaken together to make room for more, running over and poured into your lap. The amount you give will determine the amount you get back."

Sweet Selfishness.

3 comments:

  1. welcome to the world of the blogging.

    the real question is, did you go back and work it out with your roommate?

    ReplyDelete
  2. ps - check it.

    http://growingupisboring.blogspot.com/

    ReplyDelete
  3. hi love....just thought i'd say hi....and i'll see you soon

    ReplyDelete

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