My first thought was, "so?" Of course, I'm not going to be happy when I don't get what I want. Obviously, I chose said thing because it was what made me happy. Is that such a ludicrous theory?
Now that I've had time to think about this, and set my emotions aside, is it okay for me to sulk? Sure it's natural, but is it okay? And if it's okay, does that still make it right? I guess this all depends upon what a person believes.
What message am I sending out to others when I sulk? What am I contributing when I sulk? Who benefits from this? I suppose I do, but either the person gives me my way (and I feel bad) or they don't and I'm still unhappy. There's not really an upside to the situation.
As a Christian (and a human being), I should be willing to lessen myself (and be happy doing so) for the benefit of others. I think a lot of us don't have that hard of a time doing things we don't want to do, or giving up things we want. Yes, these things are hard, but the real battle is doing these things positively. This reminds me of the movie The Break Up. During one scene, Jennifer Aniston's character tells Vince Vaughn's character that he should want to do the dishes, and he replies, "No one wants to do the dishes."
Of course no one wants to do the dishes. Of course no one wants to change the radio station when their favorite talk show host is on. Sometimes, we have to do these things. We have to lessen ourselves to make someone else greater. We have to lessen ourself to make our God greater. Because if not for selfless love, what is our God? What is our relationship with Him?
"If we are the body, why is His love not showing them there is a way? Jesus is the way."
Through our love, what examples can we set? As Christians and as members of the human race, how can we love a world that is just waiting to destroy us?
Dear Rissa,
ReplyDeleteFirst of all I would like to acknowledge your courage in talking about selflesness (is that a word??). It's always easy to tell people about how to achieve their own immediate satisfaction because only a few realize that in the long run giving is so much more fullfilling than receiving.
Personally, I felt identified with this specifical blog because I tend to sulk whenever things dont go the way I want them to. I've noticed this pattern in my life; whenever I go through tough moments, at the end it all results for my greater good. what I realized while reading your blog is that what really makes those tough times so bad (for me and for the people around me) is my negative attitude!!
The Bible teaches that there's no greater love than that of giving your life for another person. I belive that this does not only refer to literal death. There are many ways that we can die for others in our everyday life. One of them is by being flexible with others even when that implies that things wont go the way we would have wanted.
By doing this we get the satisfaction of demonstrating the greatest love that exists, a satisfaction that is so fullfilling that it will not leave any space for any negative feeling..