What about me!?!
“What about me?” It’s my weakness. My personal poison. The selfish place that blinds me in the blink of an eye. I ask it when a reckless taxi cuts me off on the highway, while I’m meeting all the needs and never getting around to my own, when there are misunderstandings in marriage, and when I dare let myself think on the tangles of South Africa’s Department of Home Affairs.
The world will tell you it’s valid. You deserve.... You have the right... The selfish fire of my flesh is never short on fuel. But, you know what, world? It’s not really working for me.
The “what about me’s” have nearly done me in lately. I’ve walked around with a proverbial plank in my eye for so long that I’ve adjusted my vision to seeing the world around it. It would hurt too badly to pull it out anyway. Isn’t that what they used to do on Grey’s Anatomy? Leave the foreign object in place until there was someone qualified to remove it?
I was certainly not qualified to change myself. But I am known and loved by a God who can do all things despite my selfishness and sinfulness. I stayed up all night Saturday night praying. ALL NIGHT. I made coffee and oatmeal at 1am. I played “Break Every Chain” over and over again. My planky eyes thought I was praying for other people’s chains, but, lo and behold, God has some work to do in me!
I didn’t know what to do, but I knew that asking, “What about me?” wasn’t working. So I had to do something different. I flipped the script and asked God, “What ABOUT me?” What about me needs to repent, confess, see things differently? What about the is more consumed with myself than You? What about me is vying to put myself above others and has become weary of doing good? God is faithful, and He loves to answer those questions. Can you believe that the King of Kings, the Creator of heaven and earth was willing to reach down and pull a plank out of my eye, like a daddy removing a splinter for his little girl?
Jesus never once stopped and asked, “What about me?” Instead, he asked, “Will you forgive them Father, for they know not what they do?” We don’t have to know how to do things right. We just have to know Who to turn toward to ask for help. The world has a lot to say, but there’s a quiet healer who is always at hand to whisper hope into your heart.
The Lord said, “Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.” Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake came a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper.
1 Kings 19:11-12
The Lord was in the whisper. Today I’m praying that everyone who reads this story will hear the gentle whisper of the God who loves them.