It's Not About Me - Max Lucado [3]
What would happen if we accepted our place as Son reflectors?
Such a shift comes so stubbornly, however. We’ve been demanding our way and stamping our feet since infancy.Aren’t we all born with a default drive set on selfishness? I want a spouse who makes me happy and coworkers who always ask my opinion. I want weather that suits me and traffic that helps me and a government that serves me. It is all about me. We relate to the advertisement that headlined, “For the man who thinks the world revolves around him.”A prominent actress justified her appearance in a porn magazine by saying,“I wanted to express myself.”
Self-promotion. Self-preservation. Selfcenteredness. It’s all about me!
They all told us it was, didn’t they? Weren’t we urged to look out for number one? Find our place in the sun? Make a name for ourselves? We thought self-celebration would make us happy ...
But what chaos this philosophy creates.What if a symphony orchestra followed such an approach? Can you imagine an orchestra with an “It’s all about me” outlook? Each artist clamoring for self-expression.Tubas blasting nonstop. Percussionists pounding to get attention.The cellist shoving the flutist out of the center-stage chair.The trumpeter standing atop the conductor’s stool tooting his horn. Sheet music disregarded. Conductor ignored.What do you have but an endless tune-up session!
Harmony? Hardly.
Happiness? Are the musicians happy to be in the group? Not at all.Who enjoys contributing to a cacophony?
You don’t. We don’t. We were not made to live this way. But aren’t we guilty of doing just that?
No wonder our homes are so noisy, businesses so stress-filled, government so cutthroat, and harmony so rare. If you think it’s all about you, and I think it’s all about me, we have no hope for a melody. We’ve chased so many skinny rabbits that we’ve missed the fat one: the God-centered life.
What would happen if we took our places and played our parts? If we played the music the Maestro gave us to play? If we made his song our highest priority?
THE GOD-CENTERED
LIFE WORKS. AND IT
RESCUES US FROM A
LIFE THAT DOESN’T.
Would we see a change in families? We’d certainly hear a change. Less “Here is what I want!” More “What do you suppose God wants?”
What if a businessman took that approach? Goals of money and name making, he’d shelve. God-reflecting would dominate.
And your body? Ptolemaic thinking says, “It’s mine; I’m going to enjoy it.” God-centered thinking acknowledges, “It’s God’s; I have to respect it.”
We’d see our suffering differently. “My pain proves God’s absence” would be replaced with “My pain expands God’s purpose.”
Talk about a Copernican shift. Talk about a healthy shift. Life makes sense when we accept our place. The gift of pleasures, the purpose of problems—all for him.The God-centered life works. And it rescues us from a life that doesn’t.
But how do we make the shift? How can we be bumped off self-center? Attend a seminar, howl at the moon, read a Lucado book? None of these (though the author appreciates that last idea). We move from me-focus to God-focus by pondering him. Witnessing him. Following the counsel of the apostle Paul: “Beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, [we] are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord” (2 Corinthians 3:18 KJV).
Beholding him changes us. Couldn’t we use a change? Let’s give it a go.Who knows? We might just discover our place in the universe.
PART ONE
GOD-PONDERING
CHAPTER TWO
SHOW ME YOUR GLORY
2
An anxious Moses pleads for help. “[God], you tell me, ‘Lead this people,’ but you don’t let me know whom you’re going to send with me.... Are you traveling with us or not?” (Exodus 33:12, 16 MSG).
You can hardly fault his fears. Encircled first by Israelites who long for Egypt, and second by a desert of hot winds and blazing boulders, the ex-shepherd needs assurance. His Maker offers it.“I myself will go with you....