WilliamPalooza [selfishness]

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"What a person plants, he will harvest. The person
who plants selfishness, ignoring the needs
of others--ignoring God!---harvests
a crop of weeds. All he'll have to show for his life is
weeds! But the one who plants in response to God,
letting God's Spirit do the growth work in him, harvests
a crop of real life, eternal life," Gal. 6:7-8.
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The day had taken its toll on him. All day, he’d chosen himself. It had to be his way, his game, his toy, his room, his turn, his everything. I could see there wasn’t any conflict erupting from this unusual turn of events, so I allowed it to play out and was hoping that God was going to birth some beauty from this. Sounds like this day should have had William jumping for joy. This should have been the Williampalooza day--only it wasn’t.

Wyatt, his twin brother, without an apparent care in the world, allowed William to dictate every blessed thing that day. It started small, but as is often the case, it grew into a monster before the day was out. William was a grumpy melting down mess; paradoxically Wyatt’s spirit was as light as a feather as he allowed William to run the day and drive himself further and further into the self made trap.

The differences between the two of them could not have been more stark. At the end of this day I asked the boys to tell me how their day had gone. I asked each boy to report on his heart and Wyatt cheerfully said, ‘it feels great Momma.” William on the other hand scowled in response to the question.

“William, I’m confused. Didn’t you say you got to choose the games that you two were going to play all day, and you got to be first, and you demanded certain toys, and you got to pick which books on CD you wanted at quiet time?”

“Yes,” he sulked.

“Then why if you got to have your way all day, are you so grumpy?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” he admitted, obviously confused.

We talked about what it looks like to honor people. How God blesses us when we honor others. But, when we are stuck on honoring ourselves we become like a hole that gets deeper and deeper. No matter how much we get our own way it just isn’t ever enough and we feel empty in the end, resenting everyone and everything around us. This day happened several years ago but it still serves as a helpful reminder on a regular basis because surprisingly it is still very fresh in the boys’ memories. I think it resonates with them because it was such a perfect illustration of God’s upside down kingdom.

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“If your first concern is to look after yourself, you’ll never find yourself. But if you forget about yourself and look to Me, you’ll find both yourself and Me,” Mth. 10:38-39.

“What I’m trying to do here is get you to relax, to not be preoccupied with getting, so you can respond to God’s giving,” Mth. 6:31.
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