What is Best for Me? A Case for Selfishness

When, I think about where to go to dinner, what to wear, or where to go to church; when I think about what college to attend, what job to take, or where to live; when I think about who to love, who to be friends with, or who to do business with, I think about what is best for me or maybe for Us, if others are in the picture.

Obviously, I don’t always know what is best.

And, typically, I almost always think that I do.

On a larger scale, we ask what political party is best for our country, what side of an issue should we raise our voice for, what role should capitalism and socialism play in society, and how should we respond to poverty?

When dealing with national and global issues, we ask a remarkably similar question to the one we ask when choosing what restaurant to eat in. What is best for Us? What is best for the people of our world?

As I’ve studied childhood development and development throughout a person’s life, I find that the question we ask grows in scope as we grow in maturity. The youngest of children are only concerned with themselves, while older children focus on their families and friends. The most enlightened adults among us consider themselves to be world citizens, considering what is best for all people including the unborn, future generations. Some empty themselves of self-interest to the extent that they are able to sacrifice themselves for a greater good.

In essence, we always divide the world into Us and Them. As we mature, the number of Us increases and the number of Them decreases.

Our question remains constant, what is best for Us?

Still obvious - We don’t always know what is best.

Still typical - We often think that we do.

Humility

For many of us, though, we can confess that there are just too many variables for us to believe that we have it all figured out.

Part of being human is: We always want what is best for Us.

Maybe trying to figure out what is best for Us, is the best any of Us can do.

Heroes

That is what we call people who are willing to courageously risk and often sacrifice their own lives in pursuit of the common good. Both the fireman who enters a burning building to rescue a single child and the soldier who dies attempting to the rid the world of terrorism are celebrated as heroes.

When someone is willing to sacrifice what is best for herself as an individual, in order to achieve a higher good, we hold her up as a model for all of Us to follow.

Christ declares that, “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”

You don’t have to be a Christian to know that what Christ is saying rings true. It feels right to all of Us.

The Twist

What if what is best for all of humanity is for each person to know and love God with all their heart, soul, mind and strength? That is another claim of Christ. He implies that that would lead us to loving our neighbor as ourselves. He claims that that is what is best for Us.

That everyone on earth would be included when we say Us and that no one would be left to be called Them.

So, what is best for humanity is not to strive for what is best for humanity, but to strive to love and know God.

1 John 5 teaches us that “the love of God is this, that we obey his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome, for whatever is born of God conquers the world. And this is the victory that conquers the world, our faith.”

Don’t be misled by the word, “conquers”. John is not talking about a hostile takeover. He is talking about conquering the world through love, defeating the “Us vs. Them” paradigm one act of love at a time, like dominoes falling to reveal an intricate pattern of beauty and grace that includes all people of all nations.

And, in this conquering

– by faith and through obedience to God’s commandments which are: first to love God and then to love our neighbors –

we experience what is best for humanity.

The Shift

What if, what is best for Us, as individuals and as all of humanity or all of Creation, is not the beginning or end of the story? What if that is not the most important question?

Here is the shift. What if what is best for humanity is not the primary focus of history, of our world, of our time? What if what is best for humanity is not the primary focus, but what is best for God is the primary focus?

What if that is the end all, the final deciding factor?

What if humanity, history, creation and all of the above are here because that is what is best for God?

What if the main goal of every person’s life is to bring glory to God and enjoy a relationship with Him forever?

What if the main goal of every family is to bring glory to God and enjoy a relationship with Him together forever?

What if the main goal of every tribe and every people group and every nation is to bring glory to God and enjoy Him forever?

What if all of Creation was designed to bring glory to God and reveal His power?

In Exodus 9, through Moses, God tells Pharaoh that He hasn’t destroyed him and his people completely because, “I have raised you up for this very purpose, that I might show you my power and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.”

Did you hear that? God wanted to reveal his power and make His name known in all the earth.

At that time, He did his revealing through Moses’s obedience and through Pharaoh’s disobedience.

He will do the same in our lives, through our obedience or through our disobedience.

In Our Lives

As human beings, the best we can do is to consider what is best for Us, in ever widening circles, including more of our fellow humans with Us.

God’s desire is to bring glory to Himself, to make His name known throughout the earth, and reveal His power.

Since we are all here because that is what is best for God, then we can determine two things…

First, knowing what we know about the character of God, we can be confident that fulfilling our purpose is equivalent to receiving grace, mercy, compassion and love.

Second, we can accept that following God’s will, doing what is best for God, is actually also best for Us.

We can surrender all of our understanding, performance and passion and submit to the will of God.

Maybe then we will discover for ourselves that we have not only found what is best for God, but what is best for me, for Us, and for all of humanity.

This is the history of our existence. This is the story of humanity. This is the story of the Scriptures. This is what God has revealed to us throughout His word.

All of this is encapsulated in an age old saying, “The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.”

So, our answer to "What is best for me?" is to love and know God. Let's do it.

When Knowing Hurts: The Case for Saying No to Knowledge

Friends of ours went to Las Vegas and vowed never to take their kids there. "The images. They're unavoidable. And, once they get in your head, you can't get them out, so we don't want our kids to even see them."

Makes sense.

We worried when our kids switched from a small private school to a public school. What would they be exposed to? What would they see and hear and be asked to do?

We talked with our kids about not being too curious. "You may hear some things that you can guess are inappropriate, but you aren't sure what they mean. Don't ask. If you really want to know, come home and ask us. It may feel embarrassing but we would rather talk to you about embarrassing things and tell you the truth, the accurate truth, than have a friend tell you."

We are all so curious about things that seem to be off limits. "The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence," as they say.

I grew up very curious. Mostly it was a good trait, but it also got me in trouble.

As I watched sitcoms, I was always trying to figure out the double entendres, meant to conceal adult content from us kids who were watching.

My mind became accustomed to deciphering these, and eventually I would read them into comments that weren't meant to be inappropriate at all.

Like when your grandma is talking about salad dressing and says, "I don't want it on the side. I like it on top." And, I want to say, "TMI, Grandma, TMI!"

The Cool Kids

It always seemed like the cool kids had inside jokes and understood sex, drugs, alcohol and the like before the rest of us. So, there was a tendency to think that knowing more about immoral or inappropriate things was what made someone popular.

Unfortunately, that may be true to a degree... even among adults.

The lie behind this is an age-old one. Knowing is better than not knowing. It is better to be exposed to everything, so that we can make an informed choice.

It takes so many different forms, it would be impossible to list them all. Someone is tempted to watch a PG, PG-13, R, or X rated movie.

The old motto, "Try it, you'll like it" whether it be alcohol, cigarettes, marijuana, or other drugs. Whatever is out of reach is desirable.

I say it is age-old because it sounds like Adam and Eve, doesn't it? As the story goes, God tells them to enjoy the fruit of any tree in the garden except one, the "Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil".

Why would it be knowledge that is off limits? Don't we equate "more knowledge" and "better"?

The Truth

Paul shows us the underlying truth in Romans 1-2

The Gospel is unfolding, being revealed. It is alive and penetrating. It brings life and healing and hope and peace and joy.

The Gospel, the good news of Jesus' life and His death and the open door that we have to be with God, is revealed when people, like you and I, allow God to love others through us. (1:17)

Our lives become a window through which others can see God at work in all of our lives.

If we shut down. If we become closed to God. If we allow bitterness, sinfulness, or judgment to overshadow our lives. If we stop the Gospel from doing what it will always do, reveal itself, then we are fighting against God Himself.

Paul talks about suppressing the truth, suppressing the Gospel, suppressing Christ by our wickedness, our sinfulness. (1:18)

All those things that seem so enlightened, so compelling, so desirous, so eye-opening, that increased knowledge but was sinful has become a barrier and has actually led to the truth being suppressed.

It sounds contradictory.

More knowledge, in this case, suppresses the truth.

Romans 1:21-22 - for though they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their senseless minds were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools.

I love the way that is translated, "Claiming to be wise, they became fools."

Isn't that what we all do at times. We get so tied up in wanting... needing to know so that we can be wise, only to realize that we have become the fool.

Information doesn't make us wise. Only obedience to Christ brings wisdom. And, obedience to Christ leads away from some knowledge. Not all knowledge. But definitely some knowledge.

Following God's will for our lives will not stop us from enjoying the things of this world. It will allow us to enjoy life more fully.

Do we really believe that? Sometimes, I do, but often I don't.

The lie is so compelling. I continue to believe that the more I know the better off I am. I justify it by thinking that I am limited by what I don't know and can always choose to ignore something I do know.

But in reality, some images, some experiences, some knowledge you can't easily shake. It sticks even when you don't want to. How do you un-see or un-feel or un-do something? You can't.

Obedience to Christ is revealing and experiencing sin suppresses the truth.

Our identity is in Christ, formed through obedience to Christ, and not formed by gaining knowledge of things that hinder and hurt us.