"We are the children not of earth but of heaven; inheritors of a supernatural world of independent beauty, unaffected by our nursery achievements and untarnished by our nursery sins." ("Abba" by Evelyn Underhill p.155)
“Christ was trained in a carpenter’s shop; and we persist in preferring a confectioner’s shop. But the energy of rescue, the outpouring of sacrificial love, which the supernatural life demands, is not to be got from a diet of devotional meringues and eclairs. The whole life made an oblation from the first–placed on the altar, and lived right through as a reasonable sacrifice from beginning to end–this is the pattern put before us.” (“The School of Charity” by Evelyn Underhill, 1934, p.40)
Recently, turned on to a book that the atheists call their doctrine, I’ve been reading “The Virtue of Selfishness by Ayn Rand. In it she compares the idea of selfishness against the idea of altruism. Rand does not believe that there can be a true self-sacrifice for others because in the end we all live for our own selfish motives. Case in point: If my wife walked into the middle of the street not noticing the car headed straight for her and I had the split second reaction to save her life, yet sacrifice my own, most people would call this the ultimate sacrifice. According to Rand’s argument, it would appear that way, but in the end I probably would have given my life for the selfish reason of not wanting to live the rest of my life without her. Well, she may have a point, but I hardly think that it leads me to celebrate my own selfishness. Selfishness is living in the confectioner’s shop, it’s not the real story. The pattern before us is a life that sacrifices, not because we think of the other person all the time, but because we love Jesus. “Unless you did these things unto the least my brethren you have done them unto me.” In the first three chapters of Luke you’ll find a whole host of people who enter into the hardship of Jesus’ entry into this world, hardly a happy candy shop. I’m sure you can identify…what’s your story?
1) Spend some time reflecting on the measure of your sacrifice. What do you think you can’t give up in your life? Spend a month giving up a habit in your life. Journal about it. Is it difficult? Why or why not? Read the Gospel of Luke, what is the element of sacrifice in Christ’s incarnation?
2) Spend some time in silence and allow God to speak to the selfish areas of your life. Spend about 15 to 20 minutes in silence asking nothing, just listening. Place a piece of paper before you and a pen. What does it mean to be selfish? What images develop in your mind’s eye when you think of the word “selfish”? How can God redeem the specific areas of selfishness in your life? Spend some time in prayer over these matters. What ideas are placed in your heart? If it helps seek someone out and ask them if they see any selfish ways in your way of life. What do they see? Are you surprised by their answer?