A tale of Selfishness

Here is a good collection of words "It is 2AM. I was sleeping soundly till something woke me up. I thought it was a loud noise, but when I awoke and got up to see what I had heard, I couldn't find anything.

I went back to bed and began to think about a friend of mine. My heart was burdened for him so I began to pray.

I began to just let myself go in praying for him and I was just letting all that I could see in the spirit gush forth.

My heart has been deeply grieved and burdened over this man for a long time. I guess I really began to realize it about 3 years ago. We met in 2002 at a conference and we've been friends ever since. Since I've known him, I've had periodic bouts of being angry with him, yet not being able to put my finger on exactly what I was angry about.

This morning, I think I was really able to tap into the "thing" behind my anger and to earnestly pray for him.

As I let myself go in prayer, I could see that it is his selfishness and self-centeredness that makes me angry. I can see that I have longed for this man's approval. That I have wanted to be someone on his "friend list". I set out a long time ago to be his friend. This guy is alone. He's been married 3 times and now he is alone again. He's a great guy, but he's really lonely and I feel sorry for him. I saw that he was lonely and had no one to hold him accountable and I wanted to show him that I really cared and that I love him. My husband, too, was overcome with a deep love for this man. So...as a family, we have reached out to him and tried to really care for him and be his friends. We let him into our inner circle, often having him over for dinner and including him in our gatherings at holidays.

I suppose I can see his sin so easily because I have harbored the same spirit myself. I have befriended people for my own reasons, for what I could get out of it. I have justified myself by being "nice" and for doing the "christian thing". I totally recognize it!

So...I just got up and wrote down everything I saw as I began to pray...

The Lord showed me a vision of this man standing next to a large plowed field with a desire to reap a harvest from this huge field. And I could see this man going to one corner of this field and planting one seed right in the corner. And I saw that the rest of the field remained barren and that this man is disappointed by that barreness and he is lonely and sad and disappointed and angry because the field remains barren.

From that image, I could see that this man is selfish and unwilling to do that which God requires in order to reap a harvest. He wants to be loved and respected and to have his gifts and talents acknowledged and everything he does is toward that end. He loves others and gives to others in order to get. He maintains a mental list of indebtedness in his mind of what should be coming to him.

This man is a spiritual tightwad! He won't let go of what he's got. He hangs onto it for dear life out of fear of losing it. He is willing to go plant one small seed in the corner of the field, but he isn't willing to sell all that he has and give it away to follow Christ. This man won't let go of his self-preservation and cast aside all caution to plant that entire field. He has sacks and sacks of seeds, but he is afraid to sow them. He just keeps sowing them one at a time and he never reaps much of a harvest.

As I prayed, I stood in the gap for this man because I know he doesn't have a clue as to why his field remains barren, but I can see his sin.
And I realize that it is my own sin, as well. I repented for this man and myself. I repented of my selfishness and for manipulating others for my own purposes. I repented of seeking friendships for what I can get out of it and for only giving to the point of what I felt was safe without it costing me too much, because my motives were always, really, just about me.

I could see that my sin has caused me to just have to put on a front and to hide from God and become, just religious, because I refused to be real. So I've gone on in a charade, like King Saul in Chapter 15 of I Samuel. When Samuel came to Saul and told him that God was "wrenching" the throne and the kingdom from his hands, he wanted Samuel to go with him before the people one last time and put on a show that everything was alright. He was still looking for a way to continue his charade. He didn't see that it was his refusal to let go of his life and follow God unreservedly that had cost him the kingdom.

This is my friend's problem. And mine. Isn't it really true of so many of us? We're holding onto our lives with white knuckles while looking out over the barreness and longing to see "amber fields of grain". We feel cheated, and yet, we continue our charade. We continue to go out and sow one token seed in the corner. Oh, my God! Help us!

There is something that God wants from us and it is everything! He wants us to take all our hopes and our dreams and our desire to be loved and respected and valued for who we are. He wants us to take our desire to be cherished and appreciated and loved in spite of our faults. He wants us to take our desires to have someone "wait" upon us and to linger with us long enough to see the real value of who we are and what we have to offer. He wants us to take all of those sacks full of what we want to reap from others and he wants us to give them away...to sow them into the lives of other people...and to be willing, even to just abandon our own desire for a harvest in our own field and to come and work in his fields, like Ruth. He wants us to give up our life for his sake and he promises to take care of us.

The thing that we have to sow in the Kingdom of God in order to reap a harvest is our life. We must give up our life, not in pretense, but in reality, and we must do it for the love of God alone, without expecting anything in return except peace with God. So we can say, like Job, "The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away. Blessed be the Name of the Lord."