Center of attention

Thank you, family cat, for plopping inside a bike tire on the deck one day.  Nearby, an upside-down bike waited to have its flat repaired.  But the cat, who in its cat-way likes to be the center of attention (“brush me,” “feed me”) gave my heart a prod about times I’m tempted to play “Center of My Universe.”

 We understand when babies act like that. “Diaper me,” “feed me,” “play with me,” “accept my bad moods”—they’re too young and helpless to know life has different rules as you grow up. Maturity comes with stepping outside your preoccupation with your needs. Spiritual maturity comes with learning to think and act as Christ, our role model for servanthood. The One we call the King of Kings came not to be served, but to serve, including the ultimate serving: “to give his life as a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45).

Dwelling within little circles of “self” leads to loneliness and self-pity, a problem that author J. Oswald Sanders calls “that dismal fungus.” He writes further in The Joy of Following Jesus (pp. 125-26): “If we persist in focusing our thoughts on ourselves, that will only serve to fuel the fires of loneliness.  If, instead, we turn our thoughts outward and begin caring for others, then our condition can be reversed, and we will be able to break out of the shell of our own desolation.”

            Among his other suggestions for those afflicted with loneliness:

            *God knows—believe it! (Isaiah 41:10, Heb. 13:4-5)

            * “If outward circumstances cannot be changed, inward attitudes can and should be adjusted.”

            * “Clear the ground spiritually.” Confess and forsake any contributing sin.

            * “Learn to live with some unsolved problems. Jesus told us to do this when He said, ‘You do not realize now what I am doing, but later you will understand’ (John 13:7).”

What if you’re on the “outside” of someone’s sad circle? I think poet Edward Markham (1852-1940) had a memorable image in his poem, “Outwitted”:

He drew a circle that shut me out—

Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout.

But love and I had the wit to win.

We drew a circle and took him in.

 I easily substitute “Jesus” for the word “love.”  He alone is the true center of the universe, and draws the bigger circle to bring people in.  His “drawing instrument” was the cross, and His love is big enough for those “heretics,” “rebels,” and any who think their lives have no hope.