It's Not About You!

Everything has been created through Him and for Him. ~Col 1:16b

“It isn’t? Does Dee know that?” is my usual joking response to the above title.

A co-worker and I began reading Rick Warren’s Purpose-Driven Life today. I read it aloud while she drove, and at the end of the chapter the thought to ponder was--you guessed it--“It’s not about me.” It called for reflection on areas of my life where I’d erected All-About-Dee altars and encouraged me to knock them down.

It brought to mind the fact that after I see my family on Sunday night, I may not see or speak to them again until Friday or Saturday. Interaction and activities with them always take so much of “my time” that I mire in protecting it.

The danger of this is my belief that time is mine to govern. This came home to me on Saturday past, when I watched as my brother-in-law listened to “Dance With My Father” by Luther Vandross and cried as he drove the two hours to New York (a scary proposition even as I prayed and patted him on the shoulder, keeping one eye on the road as we veered over the line). His much-loved dad had passed away suddenly while in Florida last April, on the eve of a surprise birthday celebration. Caught up in protecting “my time,” I had disassociated myself so much that I was desensitized to the fact that three months is not much healing time. I’d moved on and forgotten the call to “bear one another’s burdens.”

Sometimes, thinking about people and praying for them are just not enough. We need to reach out to them by phone or by a show of presence, whether it’s been a long day or not, heat boiling over or not. We need to just do it, in order to demonstrate that we realize our purpose and know that it’s just not always about us!

Peace,
Dee