As my life started turning in a positive direction I spent a lot of time working on myself, with Gods help changing the way my mind worked. Going from being glass half empty to glass half full, from feeling like a victim to feeling blessed for all I have, from feeling unworthy to feeling the wonder of Gods unending love. It was time well spent, but it put me in a place where I was thinking about myself all the time, thinking about how everything impacted me, thinking about why I couldn't change faster, everything was about me.
But this was a very comfortable place for me to be. You see I've been a bit of a mess my whole life, in fact if you look up "hot mess" in the dictionary you'll see my picture! So I've spent most of my years realizing I was different, and not in a good way, and trying to understand why. I became very used to looking at life thru the lens of how things impacted me, life became all about me and why I was reacting a certain way to things. I became obsessed with self analysis, it was under the guise of improving myself but it was still a selfish way to go thru life.
One of the things that always bothered me about myself was that there was an image I had of myself that wasn't coming to fruition, the real me that was locked inside the fear and anxiety that I was suffering from. I was constantly trying to understand why I couldn't let that person out, why shame and guilt was keeping that person from coming to the surface. And I was still struggling with it this summer as I was once again focusing too much on myself and what was wrong with me.
Simply put I got carried away, I had gotten to a point where I needed to stop being so singular minded, after all Jesus didn't spend his life thinking about himself. I was sitting at work, knew something was wrong, and I stared out the window for a few minutes....thankfully no one else was at work yet. I closed my eyes and started praying for guidance. I started thinking about one of the main themes of New Life Church being service to others, about Jesus' driving message being to help those that are less fortunate and loving your neighbors as he would love them, and I realized how different my mindset was to that, and how being self absorbed was not getting me more like Jesus or closer to God. Then I was given an image, a vision of Jesus that really brought home a very important lesson I desperately needed.
The vision was of Jesus, in his robe standing in front of a mirror, standing to the side looking over his shoulder at himself. As he stood there he said to himself, and yes my visions have soundtracks....its my vision!, and he said to himself "Do I look fat in this robe?" Thats right, I said it! I was immediately hit with the realization of what this meant....that is after I stopped giggling. But I was giggling because it seemed ridiculous that Jesus would say that, but thats the point, he would NEVER say that. He would never be so self absorbed to spend the time thinking about something as trivial as that. His mind was focused on helping others to the point that he sacrificed himself for the forgiveness of all our sins, that is the purest definition of service to others and loving all your neighbors as God loves them.
It was time for me to flip the script, to change how I looked at the world, and to start small with my immediate surroundings. I started thinking consciously about taking every interaction I had during a day and looking at it from the perspective of the other person. How can I make that person's day better, make them laugh, feel better, console them, understand them, listen to them, let them know that I care about them and want to help them. The point being to take the focus off myself and put it where it belonged, on other people.
At this point many of you are probably thinking, well no kidding Sherlock what did you think life was about?! May I remind you that I never claimed to be a brain surgeon! Some things take me a while, better late then never :)
Many things started making more sense, the value of serving others and how we get closer to God by helping other people, the fact that we're not meant to travel our paths alone but with the help of each other, and the real meaning of the scripture that its more blessed to give then to receive. But another amazing thing started happening, the more I thought of others the more the real person that had been locked inside of me started coming to the surface. The less I focused on myself, the more progress I made in terms of being the person I wanted to be....what a concept! This is pretty mindboggling for a stubborn simple minded guy like myself, but I immediately realized this was paramount in me becoming a better christian.
But the story doesn't end there, as with most things in life there are bumps in the road. For the second time, soon after I made a significant step towards God I was challenged and my faith was tested. A series of bad things happened to people around me and I started asking myself questions like "Why did that have to happen? Why are people I care about suffering?" This weakened me to the point where negativity started creeping back into my mind, old habits started re-appearing and I started focusing on myself. The questions became "Why am I struggling? Why don't I get those breaks? Why is my job so frustrating?"
Satan was tempting me, challenging the strength of my resolve and my ability to get my focus back where it needed to be. Thankfully I have God on my side, and he provided me the messages I needed to hear. I'm currently reading several different books, thanks to generous friends and baptism gifts! A common theme started appearing over and over, a theme I needed to get me back on track. The message was that I needed to focus on God and praise him at all times. That I needed to trust that everything that happens is a part of God's plan and to question "why" is to question Him. Rather then questioning why I don't have something praise him for providing my friends with good things and providing me with everything I need, rather then question why I'm having problems at work praise God for providing me clear signs that I need to move on, rather then be impatient with my life be grateful that He will provide all things on His schedule, instead of worrying about what I can't do anymore praise Him for what I still can do.
Put my attention to God and living in the present, appreciate all He has done for me and have faith that he will provide all that I need. Strong faith in His plan removes fear, removes the questions, removes the "why's" because I know why things happen....everything that happens is part of his plan for me and has happened on purpose to bring me closer to the person He wants me to be. Job's faith kept him from questioning, worrying, fearing...Job never lost trust in God and always believed that whatever happened was part of His plan.
Life will always present challenges, having faith doesn't mean bad things won't happen, having faith provides the strength to withstand life's challenges. And focusing on others and my relationship with God puts my focus where it needs to be and removes anxiety about what will happen next. And I now have an image in my mind that will always remind me to focus on others, an image of Jesus looking at himself in the mirror asking "Do I look fat in this robe?"
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