I don’t
read GQ magazine, but I recently came across an article that highlighted an interesting
clash of quotes in GQ's December 2013 issue.
In
the first, actor Matthew McConaughey, named GQ's ‘Man of the Year’, said:
‘I'm a fan of the word selfish. Self. Ish. When I say I have gotten a lot more self-ish, I mean I am less concerned with what people think of me … Selfish has gotten a bad rap. You should do for you."
A few pages later GQ quotes an award-winning fiction writer named George Saunders, who they've named ‘Life
Coach of the Year’.
Saunders
says,
‘The big kahuna of all moral questions, as far as I'm concerned, is ego. How do you correct the fundamental misperception that we are all born with - [namely, the idea that] I am central? All of the nasty stuff in this life comes out of that misunderstanding.’
So
there you are... two opposing worldviews.
McConaughey:
You should do for you.
Saunders:
You should get over yourself.
Which
worldview, which path, will you choose for 2014?
Of
course, Jesus said it’s not about ME at all.
Self-fulfilment comes not as we come to know ourselves or try to change ourselves, but as we come to know God and he changes us.
Fulfilment comes as we
rediscover what we were created to have: a relationship with the God who
made us and loves us and sent his Son to redeem us.
Jesus said we only discover our true selves only as we deny self and follow him:
‘When he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it. What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul? If anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when he comes in his Father's glory with the holy angels.’ (Mark 8:34-38)Don't follow McConaughey or Saunders in 2014... follow Jesus.
