But How Does Your Surgery Affect Me?

The Egyptians shall know that I am the LORD, when I stretch out my hand against Egypt and bring out the people of Israel from among them. Exodus 7:5

Being inherently self-centered, it’s my tendency to make everything about me. When I walk into the nurse’s station and they stop talking, I assume  they’re talking about me. Perhaps they do talk about me sometimes, but I’m sure that 99% of the time, they’re not. It’s just my nature to make everything about me. So, when I recently learned that one of my fellow gym members was undergoing knee surgery, I was concerned about her, but I was also concerned about how her surgery affected me. We’ve got our yearly CrossFit competition coming up and she’s the one who validates our scores for the worldwide leaderboard. I reached out, wishing her well, letting her know I’d pray for her. Then, I added this – By the way, do you think you’ll be able to validate our scores for the upcoming competition? Asking for a friend. We laughed at my self-centeredness, but that doesn’t make it not true. It’s my nature to make everything about me.

Everything isn’t always about me. That’s the lesson of today’s passage. In the story, Moses believed God’s promise that he’d free the Hebrews from Egyptian slavery but then was deflated when Pharaoh refused to let them go. Little did Moses understand that it was God’s plan for Pharaoh to refuse many times and that each time, God was going to demonstrate his power, exacting his judgment upon the Egyptians. Moses took this all very personally because it affected him. God though, had a much greater plan – I’m going to use you to do my will, showing the Egyptians that I am God. I just need you to obey, even if you can’t see the big picture.

God certainly does care about us as individuals (Matthew 6:26). We do need to believe that. Most of us though don’t suffer from being too others-centered. In fact, that’s not a word because we don’t need it to be. Self-centered though, is a word which describes most of us more than we realize. We’re inherently concerned most about how things affect us. As is often the case though, just because something is natural, that doesn’t mean it’s healthy. In fact, the Christian life as defined by Jesus is one of learning to kill our selfish nature so that we may daily focus on loving those around us.

It may be my nature to make everything about me, but it doesn’t have to be this way. In daily pointing my life at God, I’m learning to become more selfless, following Jesus, and loving others as myself. Everything isn’t always all about me.