Altar
Call – Opelika-Auburn News
Walter
Albritton
November
3, 2013
Wrapped up in
yourself you are a very small package
Benjamin Franklin said it well: “A
person wrapped up in himself makes a very small bundle.” Years later Harry
Emerson Fosdick amended the statement to read: “A person wrapped up in himself
makes a small package.”
Whether bundle or package, the point is
clear: Self-centeredness makes one a small person whose concerns are dominated
by the words “I, me, and mine.”
In God’s eyes such a person is a fool.
That is the lesson we learn from the parable Jesus told about a rich man who
built bigger barns to store “all my
grain and my goods.” He was so
obsessed with himself, Jesus said, that he missed the chance to become “rich
toward God.”
Self-interest is normal. We all need a
reasonable amount of it to survive and to achieve. But we must not allow it to
rule our lives. Self-interest should be balanced by concern for others.
Marriage, for example, never succeeds until both husband and wife learn to say
“our” more than “mine.”
Unselfish, caring people are admired
universally. Mother Teresa is a classic example. Her devotion to suffering,
dying people made her the epitome of self-giving. Most of us would like to be more like her.
None of us wishes to be known as a small person wrapped up in our own
selfishness.
The author Rita Snowden once shared this
caustic remark made about a self-centered woman: “Edith lived in a little
world, bounded on the north, south, east and west by Edith.” Edith was absorbed
with Edith! And the result was a small “bundle,” a
pitiful person wrapped up in self-interest.
The remark about Edith prompts me to
recall a line from Robert Frost. He described a man this way: “He was a light
to no one but himself.” What a chilling summary of a human being.
Years ago we sang it often – the old
gospel song titled “Others.” The refrain says it all: “Others, Lord, yes,
others, let this my motto be; help me to live for others that I may live like
thee.”
The key to victory over
self-centeredness then is caught up in that one word: others.
Stuart Briscoe is one of my favorite
writers. I offer his words as an apt conclusion to the above remarks:
“The instinct for self-preservation is
fine. Self-interest is here to stay. But self-absorption has to be seen for
what it is – immaturity run rampant. Caring for and loving others sacrificially
is the only way to grow.”
And grow we must if we are to avoid becoming
a “small package” at the end of the day. + + +