Love Is Not Self Seeking

As mothers it is easy to lose ourselves in the daily grind of giving everything we have to make sure our children are happy and healthy. We can quickly find ourselves unhappy as we feel we no longer have an individual identity. We are now known as “Ben’s Mom” or “Mrs. Miller,” no longer possessing even a first name. Even when getting contact info from new moms we meet, we have to make sure their kids name is listed also so we know who it is. This loss of “self’ brings about many ailments including anxiety, anger and depression. It is recommended that we practice self-care to help us relax and take the stress out of our lives. While this is important, it doesn’t help us regain our identity.

When speaking of self-seeking, most people automatically associate this passage in the 1 Corinthians as pertaining to being selfish. I find that being a mother, you become less selfish as you put the welfare of your family in front of your own needs. Self-seeking is about separating that part of yourself as a caregiver and finding the other parts of you that are equally important to make up who you are. However, as we are learning, we are not meant to be self-seeking. Why is this? Because we don’t know who it is we are meant to be. We can try to mold ourselves into who we want to be, or who we think we should be, but that is often times contrary to God’s plan.

God had a very specific vision in mind upon our creation. We have an identity, a purpose in life that only he knows and we hope to discover. Does this mean that we all have some grand destiny where we become well-known and make significant impacts on our world? Maybe. Or perhaps we are just meant to raise our kids to be that person and to support our friends and family as they do the same, all the while spreading the knowledge of the love God has for us.

I love how Paul says in Ephesians 2:10 (TPT) “We have become his poetry, a re-created people that will fulfill the destiny he has given each of us, for we are joined to Jesus, the Anointed One. Even before we were born, God planned in advance our destiny and the good works we would do to fulfill it!” Good works can be anything from praising our child for doing something so mundane to us, but they are so proud of themselves, such as watering the plants in the garden, or it can be something like talking to a homeless man instead of treating him as though he is invisible. They don’t need to be grand, thousand-dollar, high-profile gestures. The best works are those that no one knows of or acknowledges.

Amazingly, God believes in free-will, so it is up to us to ask him who he meant for us to be and to try our best to emulate that identity and follow the purpose he had planned for us before we were created in our mother’s womb. It could be that we are already fulfilling our intended purpose, but because we are self-seeking, we wish to be “better” to be “more” than what we are, instead of content and happy. The only one who can give us answers is, of course, our heavenly father.

So, I leave you with this passage from Romans 13:11-14, as food for thought: “And do this, understanding the present time: The hour has already come for you to wake up from your slumber, because our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed. The night is nearly over; the day is almost here. So let us put aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light. Let us behave decently, as in the daytime, not in carousing and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and debauchery, not in dissension and jealousy. Rather, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the flesh.”

Like many other moms, your nights of carousing and drunkenness are probably over, but for us, the torment of envy, greed, lust and even sloth may still have a hold. By shedding the darkness, we are saying good riddance to these demons and welcoming Jesus and his teachings with open arms. Sometimes this journey feels a little like a long sunrise in which daylight savings time is always jumping in to throw us off. Just as the light is getting brightest, the sun will quickly fall only to start making its way up once more. There is always a light at the end of the tunnel, though. With the relapses comes God’s promise of forgiveness. We just need to keep him next to us for our entire journey, never letting him get too far out of sight and always asking for his help. He is a light that will always shine through the darkest night, a beacon to guide us to where we belong.