God Needs a Selfish Believer

No one likes to be called selfish or to be thought of as selfish. That label is a death sentence. It ruins marriages, ends friendships, creates wars among neighbors, and leads to fights among siblings. In Christianity - the religion I was brought up in - selfishness is seen as the devil's work, and selflessness is considered next to godliness.

Who wants to be thought of as ungodly? Who wants to be known as selfish? Certainly, no Christian would raise their hand, and many non-Christians wouldn't either.

The better choice is selflessness: to give, give, give, and give of yourself for the sake of others. After all, that's what Jesus did, right? Jesus spent his entire existence on Earth tending to, being concerned about, and advocating for others rather than himself. He is the model we aspire to emulate in our quest to be selfless and therefore worthy of being called a "Good and faithful servant."

Right? That's what I was taught, and it's what most Christian believers are taught and still admonished to be: selfless.

Yet, selflessness has become a problem for me. I have a hunch it has become a problem for you too, especially if you are a primary caregiver of children. If this is true, then this blog is for you.

I will never forget the day selflessness betrayed me at the most inappropriate and inconvenient time.

While watching my 7, 6, 5, and 2-year-old children play together in the basement of my home, a tsunami of emotions overwhelmed my body. Tears gushed from my eyes, and my heart began to pound out of my chest. Knowing that my children would worry about why my calm disposition had suddenly changed, I ran upstairs and locked myself in the bathroom. On that cold linoleum floor, my body heaved with every teardrop. I couldn't control what was happening to me, no matter how many times I told myself to stop crying. Upon realizing that I was no longer in the basement, my young children came upstairs to look for me. They heard me crying in the bathroom and tried to open the door, but they couldn't. My 7-year-old reached for the phone to call her father at work.

"Mommy locked herself in the bathroom. She is crying and won't open the door."

Her father told my daughter not to worry; that he would call my friend Phyllis; and that he would be home shortly.

When he arrived home, he knocked authoritatively on the door.

"Pam, open the door. Open the door, Pam."

I ignored him. The more he knocked, the more I ignored him. I could hear my children crying outside the door, begging me to open it. My 2-year-old was the loudest among them.

Then, silence fell.

The next sound I heard was a soft knock on the door, followed by a familiar and friendly voice.

"Pam, it's Phyllis. You can open the door."

Without hesitation, I unlocked the door. Phyllis saw me on the floor in a pool of tears. She immediately closed and locked the door behind her, fell to her knees, wrapped her arms around me, and rocked me.

"I love you, Pam. Pam, I love you."

Phyllis held me and just rocked me, repeating her love and affirming my worth, as I soaked her top in my tears.

Somehow, Phyllis got me off that floor, out of the house, and into her car without my children noticing. As she drove me to a coffee shop, she talked, and I listened. Phyllis reassured me that I was not crazy; that she had been in the same predicament herself; that she knew how much I was struggling.

When we finally reached the coffee shop, I opened up and shared. The facade of a happy wife and mother who willingly and selflessly put her family first and herself last was dismantling. I wasn't happy. I was miserable. My health was suffering, my weight was increasing, my mental wellness was declining, my dreams were dying. And no one knew it but me, and I kept this reality a secret.

Is this what God wants of me? Selflessness to the point of poor mental, emotional, and physical health? If so, how then can I be of service to God, to my children, to my spouse at the time, to anyone?

The quest to find an answer took more than a decade. The mindset shift to accept that answer took even longer.

THE ANSWER

Selflessness without balance may be beneficial to others, but it is harmful to oneself. Selflessness with balance is beneficial to others AND to oneself. I call this benefit-to-benefit combination 'Selfish-Generosity?'. Selfish-Generosity is the practice of giving to yourself FIRST so you can generously give to others.

Yes, SELFISHNESS FIRST, then selflessness.

I talked a lot about Selfish-Generosity?. I wrote about it. I told my clients about practicing Selfish-Generosity?. I went on radio/podcasts to promote it. I even won a speech competition on the topic of Selfish-Generosity?.

THE MINDSET SHIFT

But, I wasn't practicing Selfish-Generosity?. Yes, I was a hypocrite. The struggle was in the idea of being selfish, period. That's not the 'Christian' way. There are far too many selfish people in the world and in my family that I did not want to be associated in any way with that type of behavior. I wanted to be in God's favor, not in God's disapproval. The idea of Selfish-Generosity? struck a chord with many people, especially those (like you) who put others on the front burner and themselves on the back burner.

Then, Christmas of 2023 happened and changed my mindset about SELFISHNESS first, then selflessness. After investing years of selflessness into my family, I was essentially 'left out' of Christmas 2023: the uninvited (although never really invited) guest. My children chose to spend 10 days of Christmas with their father - my ex-husband - and arrange for some other time with me. How does the person who is always looking out for the well-being of others while giving up their own well-being get kicked to the curb in favor of the person who is more selfish than selfless?

I moved from hurt, to angry, back to hurt, to resentful, to furious, then to FREE.

Yes, free!

• Free because I realized that chronic selflessness was a behavior for which I had to take full responsibility.
• Free because to expect others to reward me for chronic selflessness is not only juvenile, it is unfair.
• Free because I accepted that chronic selflessness is unhealthy.
• Free because I interpreted that God loves a selfish believer who follows the great admonition in the Gospel of Thomas: "If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you."

How can I fully bring forth what is within me if I'm too busy bringing forth what's within everyone else? What I wasn't bringing forth was certainly 'destroying me' through poor mental, emotional, and physical health.

No one else is all that concerned about bringing forth what is within you or within me. The responsibility is yours, mine, to bring forth what is within us, not the responsibility of anyone else. That's freeing!

God needs you to be selfish on purpose because when you are, you become a person who is fully alive, gifting the world with your God-given talents, and thereby elevating us all.

Selfish-Generosity? expressed becomes a win-win arrangement rather than a win-lose arrangement.

This year, my objective is to help 100 chronically selfless people bring forth what is within them. Join me in a year-long journey called Selfish-Generosity? so you can bring forth what is within you to save yourself and save others too.

"If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you."