Hi, I’m selfish. (And I’m ok with it.)

I’m not gonna lie, I forget a lot of what I talk about with my therapist. It might be a means of self-preservation. A way for me to allow myself to be fully exposed and dig into my feelings with someone who knows how to pull them out safely. To sift through my innermost thoughts and figure out what’s really going on but then forgetting the details so I don’t have to keep sitting in it once I leave her office. She often has to remind me what we talked about in the last session before we can begin brain surgery again. (If your therapy doesn’t sometimes feel like brain or open-heart surgery, I’m not sure that you’re doing it right.) But in one session, my therapist looked at me and said “What if God wants to fill you up, just for you? Not so you can pour into anyone else. Just for you. Because He wants to be with YOU, Kristin.”

Tears immediately streamed as that concept etched itself on my heart. God wants me to be with Him so He can be with me and fill me with His presence. Not so I can pour it into someone else. Not so I can do more things for His glory. Not so I can be an example or a model to follow. Not for show, even in the most honorable way. But just because He wants to be with me. Just because of me. Just for me. Why is that so hard to believe? Partly because we have this message in Christianity that your life is not your own. Therefore, everything you’re doing (especially if you’re a Christian female and really especially if you’re a Christian female in the south), is about serving other people and putting everyone else before you. Their needs, their salvation, their healing, their experience with Jesus. Yours are important, too, but only after you help fulfill them for everyone else.

I’m on staff at a church. I understand all of these things and know the value in all of them. BUT. And I mean, a big, big BUT - accepting the fact that sometimes God just wants to be with me, for me, not to be used for Him or anyone else was a mind-shift. It gives me value. It reminds me that He loves me just as much as He loves the other people He wants to reach through me. Because He chose me, just me. Before I even did any of those other things. And while the Christian walk can feel like nothing short of a confusing tightrope of tension, there are truths that are basic and simple. That God loves you. That He loves me. I didn’t have to do anything to earn His love the first time and I don't have to do anything to earn it the thousandth time.

Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart.
Psalm 37:4

I came that they may have life & have it abundantly.
John 10:10

In your presence, there is fullness of joy.
Psalm 16:11

I used to think these verses were about doing things that would make God happy. Make God happy and you’ll be happy. Live abundantly by living for Christ. When you’re being Jesus to other people, you will be filled with joy. I’m not saying that any of those statements or translations are wrong. But maybe there are other ways of reading them. Maybe God just wants us to be with Him, live with Him, spend time with Him and let Him in our lives. And that alone, the most basic of Christian principles, is enough to give us fulfillment. To quench our desires, allow us to feel like our lives are abundant, to give us joy. Just by taking some of God for ourselves. How much freedom is in that?!

For a lot of people, desire becomes synonymous with being selfish. If we have our own desires - and heaven-forbid if they revolve around ourselves - our priorities are out of whack. We shouldn’t desire to be happy, to be successful, to be more. This is why people minimize, shrink back and live smaller than what they were called to. Well, that, and the impending judgement of those who would call them conceited, prideful, attention-seeking and selfish. (People are fun.) But, in his podcast from May 2018, Rob Bell argued, “If you listen to your deepest desire and you follow it where it takes you, how is you fully alive NOT the best gift you can possibly give the world? How will that joy not overflow? Your greatest gift is you fully alive.”

Well O.KAY.THEN. If God gave us desires and God gave us talents and skills and we are lucky enough to see how they intersect, we should be chasing after them like our hair is on fire. But to know who you are in Christ, you have to spend time with Him. For your own sake. To grow your own relationship with Him. To figure out who you are becoming as you mature in your faith and navigate what paths these discoveries lead you to explore. And that takes time, self-reflection and thinking about yourself. Who you are in God & who He is in you.

Once we’re able to receive God’s love for ourselves, then we can give it to others. Once I’m rested & refueled & fully alive as myself, in Him, then I can do all of the serving that I desire to do. The things that give me life. I can do it better, with more joy, in a way that better resembles His heart. I can be a better wife & mom. I can lead my church with more authenticity, pointing people to Him without needing any of the spotlight for myself. I can think and process before reactively answering to hard questions or challenges that present themselves in conflict. But first I have to open myself up just to Him and ask Him to be with me for me. Because I’m deserving of His love. Because He wants to be with me as much as He wants to be with other people. Because I am His favorite. (So are you, I just need to make that statement so I can adopt my new attitude of worthiness.)

If that makes me selfish, so be it. I’ll be over here with my blanket, my coffee & my Jesus, becoming fully alive.