"You're Self-Absorbed"

We love ourselves too much, convinced that God does not love enough, so we have to give and take and find all the love that we need on our own.

I have understood this drama so much in my life. I was so easy to set off, convinced that my peace and happiness lay in how others treated  me, which was  just a varied and sundry way of loving myself, as if other people were there to provide for me what no one ever could.

No one can give us the "unconditional positive regard" which Carl Rogers talked about, the certain approval, the standing of perfect righteousness which only God can give us, and righteously at that, through the death and resurrection of His Son Jesus Christ.

This gift of righteousness, of perfect standing in Christ, we are to keep receiving as a gift (Romans 5: 17). It's not enough to know that we are saved. We have to know and believe in the love God which takes away our sin and gives us His standing.

My mother, like many parents, would put me down for thinking about myself. "You're self-absorbed", she would say to me over and over. Little did she understand, like many believers, that the more that we look ourselves, the more that we invite the struggles and failures of the flesh. God wants us to walk in the Spirit, trusting Him to lead us in all that we do.

He does a better job, providing for us all that we need. He gives us the design and drive to live, putting His laws in our hearts and minds, He is  God to us, and we are His people, and He promises that He will never remember our sins and our iniquities and our unrighteousness.

Parents are all too prone at remembering and reminding us of what we have done wrong. The world works that way. But that's not God's way. His goodness leads us to repentance, changing our minds from focusing on ourselves and turning in loving trust to look at Himself.

If parents, or anyone else for that matter, finds that someone is full of themselves, it really means that they are impoverished and frustrated, that they are trying to find life and direction in themselves, and because they have come up short, they take this bitterness out on themselves and everyone else around them.

"You're self-absorbed!" nothing more damns another than the labeling of another. In truth, my mother was fearfully self-absorbed, looking into her empty circumstances, taking her inventory at length in a program which teaches you that you must maintain your relationship with God.
What does the Bible say about this matter:

"Let your conversation be without covetousness; and be content with such things as ye have: for he hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee." (Hebrews 13: 5)

What really gets us out of ourselves? God in us, through Christ, who supplies all our need according to His riches, not our own (Philippians 4: 19).

Let us be Christ-absorbed, abiding in Him, who provides for us in every way. For God gave His own Son, so without a doubt He will give us all things with Him (Romans 8: 32)