Self-pity Vs. Selflessness

Self-pity Vs. Selflessness

I am disgusted with my life. Let me complain freely. I will speak in the bitterness of my soul. –Job 10:1

There have been plenty of days when I have wanted to do nothing more than indulge in an enormous pity party, feeling that I’ve earned it. And there’s no question that self-pity feels good . . . for a while. At first it feels warm and comforting, but it quickly becomes cold and corrosive. It’s like a little monster from a Saturday afternoon movie—if you feed it at all, it becomes bigger and bigger until it overpowers you. In reality, the self-pity we think will salve our wounds only serves to keep opening them.

We think that the sympathy of others is the antidote to our misery. So we invite guests to our pity party. And when they arrive we derive sadistic satisfaction from seeing them shake their heads at how hard our life is and from hearing them agree that we’ve set a new record for personal pain. But this satisfaction is short-lived. After a while we become sickened by a steady diet of sympathy.

Indulging ourselves in the luxury of misery requires a convenient amnesia of the provision of God’s grace and riches in our lives. It puts our own self-interests on the throne of our lives so that we worship them rather than God. It blinds us to seeing that God has used difficulty to bring us to the entryway of his purpose for our lives. So we collapse in a heap, and if we do not get up and enter into what God wants to do in our lives, our spirits begin a slow death. The sympathy we engender from those around us simply tucks us comfortably into our deathbed.

Are you about ready to call it quits on your personal pity party? There is a simple cure for self-pity. It is selflessness—caring for someone else’s needs more than your own. This is the only cure that works for me. So when I feel myself spiraling downward, I pick up the phone—not to complain to someone who will pity me, but to care for someone else who is hurting. When tempted toward self-pity, would you take your eyes off your troubles and look around for someone to serve? Would you offer a helping hand and a listening ear, the selfless fruit of your own broken heart?

God, I have become sickened by the sympathy of others and by my own self-pity. Will you save me from myself? Draw my eyes toward you and my heart toward the needs of others.

DIGGING DEEPER