Losing Yourself in Serving Others: Thoughts from a Christian Counselor

“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind and love your neighbor as yourself.” (Lk 10.27-28; Mt 22.37-38; Mk 12.30-31; Deut 6.5). In these words, Jesus sums up all the Old and New Testament commands of God.

These verses used to be interpreted as love God first and then others second. “Do to others as you would have them do to you.” (Lk 6.31; Mt 7.12). Self-love, or even selfishness, was assumed.

Love’s Turnaround

Eric Fromm’s best-selling Art of Loving turned this interpretation on its head. Fromm contended that one must love oneself before loving others. If one does this, then the love of God will flow. Rather than self-denial, self-fulfillment was the basis of love. Rather than humility, self-esteem became the basis for psychological health.

The result was the Age of the Self: self-fulfillment, self-actualization, self-acceptance, self-awareness, self-esteem, and self-help. The past half century in the West has yielded a generation turned in upon itself. In the 1980s, Christopher Lasch called it the “culture of narcissism” – ever gazing into its own reflection. Some have called it the “me generation” – or even the “me me me generation,” since the past few generations do not seem able to get out of themselves. Whitney Houston defines the “greatest love of all” as love of self. It is all about me – and in this generation the one “who loves too much” is termed mentally ill or “co-dependent.”

This is the generation and culture that individual therapy was born in. Individual therapy involves helping clients to “find themselves,” discern their “true selves,” discern their values, and act in congruence with their “true personal values.” Mental illness or even “sin” (i.e. “missing the mark”) occurs when we don’t get our “needs” met and move towards self-actualization. Consequently, most therapists promote divorce from spouses, homosexuality, sexual experimentation, and even abortion as means towards self-actualization and fulfillment. Self-esteem is the ultimate value and its absence leads to poor performance, conflict, war, and abuse of every kind.

He Must Become Greater and I Must Become Less

Traditionally, Christianity held up John the Baptist as its greatest model (Mt 11.11) because of his statement: “He [Jesus] must become greater and I must become less.” (Jn 3.30) The church celebrates his life on the longest day of the year because the days only get shorter after that, until the birth of Christ is celebrated six months later on December 25^th.

Mystics of all faiths contend that the greatest spiritual heights involve losing oneself. Christian mystics lose themselves in God, becoming one with God and one with humanity. Human marriage is modeled after this marriage between God and human beings, where individuals lose themselves in the other while still maintaining their identity.

It is by losing ourselves that we truly find ourselves. As Jesus said, “Whoever finds their life will lose it and whoever loses their life for my sake will find it.” (Mt 10.39)

When Loss is the Gain of Love

How do we “lose ourselves” for the sake of Christ? As Paul wrote: “For me to live is Christ and to die is gain.” (Phil 1.21) God is love and to live in Christ is to experience the infinite love of the Father for the Son. We lose ourselves in love because God is love.

This means that the “godly” life is living in the love of God. The self expands far beyond itself as it lives its life in God. It is by losing ourselves in the love of God that we become who we really are, i.e. we actualize ourselves.

It is then that we live in love for others, laying down ourselves to find ourselves in the service of others, even as God expressed Himself most fully in laying His life down for others in the person of His Son.

Christian Counseling Means that You Do Not Walk Alone

Choosing to lose yourself in the service of others can be a scary endeavor. Letting go of possessions, expectations, and even power takes much courage – even when you consciously know that your rewards in heaven will be greater and that in the end you will experience the love that you truly desire. Spiritual direction and Christian counseling can help you in your journey into the very heart of God. Disciples rarely walk alone and a trained Christian counselor can be a valuable support as you seek to follow Christ more fully. To find out more about what this could mean in your life, please contact us here.

 

Photos
“Sailors Paint a hut, Honduras,” Official U.S. Navy Page, (CC BY 2.0), Flickr CreativeCommons; “At the Fair,” courtesy of Donna M. Cowan