Sunday at church i heard an amazing sermon preached by the amazing Tammy Conrad..the kind of sermon that penetrates your heart so deep that you know God intentionally made sure, despite all odds, that you were at church that morning to hear it. I know that this was the case because i woke up at 10:06..giving me approximately 20 minutes to get ready. She said so many amazing things, but what I want to touch on that hit me the hardest is she kind of called all of us out for being selfish. For saying things like "What about me?" or "You don't know how hard I work." It immediately got the gears turning inside of my head..how many times have I said something so self centered? Something that I didn't even realize I was saying. How many times have I been upset because I pour myself into someone so that they can leave me disappointed? How many times have I dared someone to take a walk in my shoes, and see how they like it.
Suddenly I'm drowning in this huge pool of emotions. How on earth did I ever think that I wasn't a selfish person? Just when I thought I was content in my character, God smacks me in the face again and tells me to wake up. You see, when things get hard in my life, I think of literally every single bad thing that has ever happened to me and it all piles up until I can't handle it anymore. If you ask me, I can be somewhat of a baby..in fact, i think we all can be. But in that moment, I thought about Jesus. I know Jesus seems pretty appropriate to think about during church, but I thought about Him and how much He gave up for me to be sitting where I was in that very moment. I thought about all of the blessings He has given me that I don't even begin to deserve, and i'm overwhelmed by my self righteousness. I'm overwhelmed by the fact that I think I DESERVE to have more than i do. I'm overwhelmed by the fact that any of us think we deserve what we're given. Cause we don't.
I want you to think of the person you love the most in the entire world. Mom, Dad, brother, sister, boyfriend, girlfriend, best friend, anyone. Now, pick the sin you struggle with the most. Got it? Now picture that person being nailed to a cross, suffering and dying because of that one thing you do and can't stop. And if you had just stopped, that person wouldn't have had to die. I bet you can't picture that..I bet right now in your mind you are thinking Come on Keller, if I had to pick between a sin and someone I love dying..i would pick to get rid of the sin. Right? Wrong. I think we choose to forget about Jesus when we're having fun. I think we forget about Jesus when we're sinning. Because we want to. Because we're selfish. And you know the worst part of it all? He knew we would forget Him but He died with us in mind.
You might think i'm rambling, you might not see where I'm going with anything I just said, so let me put it in simpler terms. We have one opportunity to live our lives. We have one shot at forever. We can blame our poor circumstances, our bad attitudes, our could have, would have and should haves on everyone else in the world. But when it comes down to it, we don't deserve anything we do have. My challenge for you is to think of whatever selfish desire you're struggling with and trash it..give it to Jesus because He knows your heart better than you do. His stopped beating so that yours could. And before you tell anyone else to take a walk in your shoes..why don't you take a walk in His.
