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Deal with Self

【Self-image】Some people feel a need to cover up a lack of self-confidence by trying to make a big impression. A newly promoted Army colonel moved into his new and impressive office. As he sat behind his new big desk, a private knocked at his door. “Just a minute,” the colonel said, “I’m on the phone.” He picked up the phone and said loudly, “Yes, sir, General, I’ll call the President this afternoon. No, sir, I won’t forget.” Then he hung up the phone and told the private to come in. “What can I help you with?” the colonel asked. “Well, sir,” the private replied, “I’ve come to hook up your phone.”

【Self-image】At twenty, we worry about what people think about us.

At forty, we don’t care what people think about us.

At sixty, we find out that people haven’t been thinking about us at all.

【Self-image】I have often wondered how it is that every man sets less value on his own opinion of himself than on the opinion of others. So much more respect have we to what our neighbors think of us than to what we think of ourselves.—Marcus Aurelius

【Self-image】The famous actor Peter Sellers, who played in the “Pink Panther” movies, once said he lacked a personality. “As far as I’m aware, I’m nothing,” he once said. “I have no personality of my own whatsoever. I have no character to offer the public. I have nothing to project.” In spite of his notable professional image on the screen, Sellers saw himself as a person without an identity of his own.

【Self-pity】Self-pity weeps on the devil’s shoulder, turning to Satan for comfort. His invitation is: “Come unto me all you that are grieved, peeved, misused, and disgruntled, and I will spread on the sympathy. You will find me a never-failing source of the meanest attitudes and the most selfish sort of misery. At my altar you may feel free to fail and fall, and there to sigh and fret. There I will feed you soul on fears, and indulge your ego with envy and jealousy, bitterness and spite. There I will excuse you from every cross, duty, and hardship, and permit you to yield unto temptation.”

【Self-reform】No matter how much a man tries to reform himself, he can never achieve the newness of life that God wants him to have in Christ. Although a man can make changes in his life, even positive changes, he still remains the same person and often goes from one kind of problem to another.

Sports broadcaster Harry Kalas once introduced a Philadelphia Phillies baseball player, Garry Maddox, with the following words: “He has turned his life around. He used to be depressed and miserable. Now he’s miserable and depressed.”

【Self-reliance】Without thinking about it, often our reasoning is this: “I-by my stupidity-got into this mess; therefore I-by my stupidity-will get out of it.”

【Self-reliance】The story is told of a carpenter who was nailing shingles on the roof of a house. He lost his footing and started to slide off. As he was sliding he began praying, “Lord, oh, Lord, help me!” Still he kept sliding. Again the man prayed, “Lord, oh, Lord, help me!” He kept sliding until he got to the edge and a nail sticking up caught hold of his pants. After he came to a stop he said, “Never mind, Lord. The nail’s got hold of me now.”

【Self-righteousness】Self-righteousness is like a bottomless cup: though you pour and pour, you will never be able to fill it. Why? Because pouring yourself into yourself adds nothing to you. Nothing plus nothing always equals nothing.

Instead, accept God’s righteousness rather than trying to accumulate your own. You will find that the righteousness he offers is real. And that is what fills the cup of sanctification.

【Self-sacrifice】A little girl’s first-grade class held its “track and field” day. She won quite a few ribbons, among them one blue ribbon for a first place. Later that day, when she came home, the blue ribbon was missing, and her mother asked what had happened to it. “Oh,” she said, “Bruce was crying because he didn’t win a first place ribbon, so I gave it to him.” Her mother hugged her and told her she thought it was very generous to give Bruce the ribbon. “Why not?” she asked. “After all, I know that I won it.”

If only all of us, adults included, had such a clear idea of what things are really important in life, and what things are just decorations!

【Self-worth】We all frequently compare ourselves favorably with someone else. We all think of someone we consider to be less mature, less competent, or less able than we are. That person is a great comfort to us because he or she enables us to keep our self-image intact by saying, “Well, at least I’m not like so-and-so.” The only problem with determining our self-worth by comparing ourselves with others is that we are using the wrong measuring stick.

A little boy came up to his mother one day and said to her, “Mother, guess what! I’m eight feet, four inches tall!” His mother, greatly surprised, inquired into the matter and found he was using a six-inch ruler to measure a “foot”. The boy was actually only a few inches over four feet.

This is exactly what we do, we measure ourselves by one another, an imperfect prototype, rather than by the standard of the Word of God.

【Self-worth】In his autobiography, cellist Gregor Piatigorsky tells about a time he was soloist at a concert conducted by Arturo Toscanini: “The maestro paced the dressing room in which I practiced, repeating, ‘You are no good; I am no good.’ ‘please, Maestro,’ I begged, ‘I will be a complete wreck.’ Then, as we walked on stage, he said, ‘We are no good, but the others are worse. Come on, caro, let’s go.’”

To Toscanini, it did not matter what he said about himself and the cellist. So long as he could compare himself and the soloist with “the others” and say that the others were less, he felt that they themselves could walk forward with great confidence, feeling full of self-worth. But there is great danger here. For what happens when one looks out and finds the others better? To use comparison with others as a measure for self-worth and confidence is to use a false standard. It puts us at the mercy of the external situation and the circumstances in which we find ourselves. Our sufficiency must be in Christ alone. And our relationship with him should be the sole determinant for our feelings of self-worth and confidence.

【Evaluation of Self-worth】Suppose that during the past week a young wife gave birth to her first baby. Now suppose that as she held her new baby in her arms and was enjoying the pleasure of motherhood, someone came up to her and said, “How much do you want for the child?” Of course she would show no interest in the offer and would be offended at even a suggestion that her precious babe was for sale. But the stranger is persistent and offers ten thousand dollars, then a hundred thousand dollars, and finally one million dollars. The offers are in vain because the mother will simply press the baby closer to her and reply, “My baby is worth more to me than all the world!”

Of course, if she didn’t say that, we would question whether she had the proper attitude for motherhood. But why does she say it? Because she looks forward to thousands of dirty diapers, sleepless nights with a sick child, and the costs of raising that child? Because the child will bring her fame and fortune? Of course not. Rather, it is because she has chosen to value this tiny person, to deem the small one to be of worth, and to love that baby of hers. Such worth resides in the very identity of a person, not in their performance. And such worth, coming from the image of God in all of us, must be the basis for our concept of ourselves, too, if our self-portrait is to be durable and worthwhile.

【Selfishness】Too many people conduct their lives cafeteria-style: self-service only.

【Selfishness】One-half of our problems come from wanting our own way. The other half come from getting it!

【Selfishness】A little boy and his younger sister were riding a hobby horse together. The boy said, “if one of us would just get off this hobby horse, there would be more room for me.”

【Destructive Selfishness】The things that will destroy America are peace at any price, prosperity at any cost, safety first instead of duty first, the love of soft living, and the get-rich-quick theory of life.—Attributed to Theodore Roosevelt