Forgetting Self

One of the things I just read is Timothy Keller's very short book The Freedom of Self Forgetfulness.  The book seeks to discover the defining characteristics of a Christian life, and it asks what it is that makes a heart transformed by God different than it was before.  "It is not simply a matter of morally virtuous behaviour.  It is quite possible to do all sorts of morally virtuous things when our hearts are filled with fear, with pride or with a desire for power."  Keller uses a passage in 1 Corinthians as his foundation for this search. 

We all crave approval, don't we?  We go about getting it in so many different ways, but I really don't think thirty-somethings are any less pathetic than junior high kids when it comes to the longing to fit in.  "What Paul is looking for, what Madonna is looking for, what we are all looking for, is an ultimate verdict that we are important and valuable.  We look for that ultimate verdict every day in all the situations and people around us.  And that means that every single day, we are on trial."  Then when we realize that we are longing for approval, we learn from the world that it is because of our low self-esteem.  If only we didn't care so much what other people thought, right? 

Boosting our self-esteem by living up to our own standards or someone else's sounds like a great solution.  But it does not deliver.  It cannot deliver...I cannot live up to society's standards--and that makes me feel terrible.  I cannot live up to other societies' standards--that makes me feel terrible.  Perhaps the solution is to set my own standards?  But I cannot keep them either--and that makes me feel terrible, unless I set incredibly low standards.  Are low standards a solution?  Not at all.  That makes me feel terrible because I realize I am the type of person who has low standards.  Trying to boost our self-esteem by trying to live up to our own standards or someone else's is a trap.  It is not an answer.

So how do we get around it?  How do we escape the trap?  What if there was some way to guarantee the verdict regardless of my performance? You know, like pay off the judge and jury so that the evidence that comes to light makes no difference?

If there were some way to get there, to have that final verdict already spoken, wouldn't that change the way I operate?  I would no longer allow every decision to be colored by a desire to fit in or to succeed.  I would not spend my evenings looking back on my day in disappointment over how I failed again.  In this possibility, with my ego filled with something solid instead of puffed up with air or popped like a balloon, life has a completely different flavor.  "I can actually enjoy things for what they are.  They are not just for my resume...They are not just a way of filling up the emptiness.  Wouldn't you want that?  This is off our map...Not thinking more of myself as in modern cultures, or less of myself as in traditional cultures.  Simply thinking of myself less."

What about you?  Are you straining every day to hear the verdict from the court--your own judgement and the opinion of others? Or have you escaped that? 

Go download the book for 99c.  It will take you less than an hour to read.  Then let me know what you think.