Have you ever spent time looking for something, someone to confirm something to you, to validate you, to help you to just know that you are not alone? We feel, we bleed, we break, we try, we fail. We ask, we seek, we knock. Sometimes even when we do all things, we still find ourselves answerless and alone. We are still seeking, searching, only to find ourselves more lost.

Sometimes I find that all of the seeking that I have been doing to help me, to love me, to validate me has all the time been a wasteful search. I already have felt the depth of peace within and have enjoyed abiding in it, yet I try and find something outside to give me something close to that. I have honestly wasted so much time searching for that and it has always only ever brought me misery. And I mean like ugly-cry, self-loathing, people-hating, world-shunning, misery.

Because it always comes back to selfishness. When I focus on others I am filled, lacking nothing. In selfless service I am complete. In the moments when resentment creeps in, or uncertainty or sometimes just plain tiredness, or lack of motivation to give, I start thinking about me and how much I’ve been giving and how much no one else has a heart like me, or even cares about me, considers me, or notices my needs. My focus shifts and I end up ungrateful, entitled, selfish.

As a writer, or maybe just the type of writer I am, I like to write the good stuff. I want to inspire and when I find myself in these moments I feel anything but inspirational. And I wouldn’t be if I stayed there, thinking about myself or even worrying about my writing or what people might think about what I share.

Well, forgetful and human as I am, I do know one thing, I don’t have to be perfect, have a perfect life or present something perfect. That would not be me. I do know inside that when the waves of selfishness come to knock me off track and cause me to become self-minded, self-centred, there is pain, but there are also lessons and the lesson is this…

I am not here on earth to be served, I am here to serve. Kingdom living is different than how things seem to be logically. Christ’s path is heart-centred, love-focused, giving, serving. To empty yourself repeatedly and to die to self. It is not easy. After years of putting it into practice, I still struggle. I still wish that it could be any other way. Sometimes I want the recognition. I want to be spoiled and pampered and treated especially special. I want to be acknowledged and cared for more. I don’t want to clean the toilets and sinks again. I don’t want to have to cook or be counsellor, teacher, friend, wife. I don’t want to forgive again. I just want to be loved and feel super blissful, NOT uncomfortable, please God, not again.

In selfless sacrifice we are truly found. In the upside down version of life where Christ beckons us to selfless service, to pick up our cross and follow him, to die daily, to abide in him and bear fruit, that is where true peace and contentment is found. To forget what we want and to help someone else, we will find joy and purpose and our needs will be met. When we focus on others and stay grateful there is no way that we will be left wanting. When we shift our focus to what we are taught is the way things work, the way of the world and our sick selfish society always instilling us with messages of satisfying ourselves by buying this, or that, doing this or that for self edification and glorification, we will remain lost and longing.

It takes a continual effort to remind ourselves of the trap of this lie and remember what is true and how things really work. The more you love others and live as a representative of Christ/love on earth, you will feel loved and as though you have a purpose. The more you live for yourself, seeking after the fluffy, magical feelings of a permanent state of bliss found in the hands or others or the temporary pleasures of the world, the more empty and dissatisfied you will feel, even unto sickness or death by suicide for your lack of discontentment and frustration in why this world-principal of me first, selfishness is not and has not ever worked.

It is counterintuitive until you really, repeatedly and continually, consciously choose to serve, choose to not dwell in negativity with a self-centered focus and you come to really gain this wisdom and have it be the road map of your soul. You are not empty. Maybe you have forgotten and deep down you know what I am saying is true. Maybe today is the day that you dust off your soul and soak in the soothing waters of selfless service to remember who you truly are and why you are here on this planet for a limited time only.

Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me. I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing. – John 15:4-5

“If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me” (Luke 9:23)

I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. – Galatians 2:20

And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. – Matthew 10:38

For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. – Romans 8:13