Why do I think everything is about me?

I recently had a good friend make a comment to me in regards to the NCAA tournament. He said, “Hey UNC fans, let’s stop thinking everything is about you”. Though I know this comment was made in jest and was just your typical March Madness trash talk, because it was directed towards me, I took it personally and begin to ask myself the question, “Do I really think everything is about me?”

Within seconds, my pondering this question turned from thoughts about basketball and loyalty to a particular team to thoughts about my own life – my job, my friends, the things that I talk about, the things that I think about, the disappointments in life, the stresses of life, etc. Why do I think everything is about me?

In his book, “Whiter than Snow”, Paul David Tripp writes, “There are times when you let yourself be ruled by your self-focused desires rather than by God’s clear commands. There are times when you love something in the creation more than you love the Creator. There are times when you willingly step over God’s boundaries in pursuit of what you want. There are times when your little kingdom of one means more to you than his transcendent kingdom of glory.” And I don’t know about you, but for me these “times” aren’t isolated times now and then, but rather they happen more often than not. Why do I think everything is about me?

When my friend says, “Hey UNC fans, let’s stop thinking everything is about you”, I resonate with that, because UNC fan or not, we all spend much of our life thinking everything is about us. We were born that way – “Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me.” ~Psalm 51:5. We were raised that way. Our society conditions us to think that way. We are told to “look out for number one”. We are told to do what it takes to climb the ladder of success, regardless of who we hurt along the way. We are told by our world and by the Enemy himself from an early age that “everything is all about me”.

Yet God’s Kingdom is counter-cultural to anything we’ve found in the world. God’s Kingdom is like no other. And choosing His Kingdom over my own is SO WORTH IT! Time and time again I fall back into the self-feeding lie that everything is about me. I believe the lie that my life should revolve around my comfort, my dreams, my desires – me, me, me! What a lie! The truth is I will only be truly satisfied when I live for Something – rather Someone - other than myself. Any time spent thinking it is all about me is merely wasted time.

Though I know that my friend’s comment about UNC fans was intended to get under my skin and make me mad, what it really did was point me to Christ, and for that, I am thankful.