It’s an unchanging key to the Kingdom: life expands and contracts according to our preoccupation with self. “If your first concern is to look after yourself, you’ll never find yourself. But if you forget about yourself and look to me, you’ll find both yourself and me.” (Matthew 10:39)
We get stuck in our own needs and wonder why life isn’t “better” for us. The solution is simple: Raise your sights and your concern to those around you, forget about yourself and ask what you can do for the person standing in front of you. That is Christian maturity: the bearing of fruit. Life is too short to be self-conscious, timid, and retiring. A mature disciple of Jesus is one who has become outgoing, servant-minded, and others-focused. The question to ask is, “What can I do to help that man bear his load?”
Karl Menninger, the famous psychiatrist, noted that the great problem in his psychiatric hospital was how to get the patients to do anything for others, “for they are not interested in others; they are interested solely in themselves – that’s why they are here!”
May God deliver us from the shallowness of soul-sucking selfishness!
Dispatches from the Shadowlands 
This is so true. In my own life, which has been fraught with injuries and recoveries, it helps so much to think about how I can encourage others. At the very least I can make phone calls, send notes, and pray. There is a great need at these times to find ways to “get out of myself”. Blessings given bless the giver.
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So true, Sharon. I wrote this as much for myself as for anyone, since I need the reminder often.
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Don, I pray often- LORD TAKE MY EYES OFF OF ME! When I am looking at and focusing on me, I am consumed with MYSELF. I am not able nor inclined to be putting others first.
When my eyes are on Jesus- I am doing what I need to be doing.
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