Turning Outward (The Secret to Real Joy)

“Learning to be “others-centered” is a massive cure for any type of ailment...love-sickness, single-sickness, depression or anything else. For it is when we take our eyes off our own inadequacies and losses that we are truly able to be used for others. And as we are used to help others, our pain slowly goes away. (You can’t focus on two things at once!!)”

One of the great tragedies of American Christian young women is our total preoccupation with self. In the book Set Apart Femininity Leslie Ludy wrote about the dangers of the popular self-esteem message for women, which teaches that our own heart is good, and encourages us to live to our true self and inhabit our own beauty. Not only is this a non-Biblical concept (we have no true eternal beauty outside of the beauty of Jesus Christ, and we only bring Him glory by dying to self, not living to it) but the real danger is that it keeps us consumed with me, me, me while the rest of the world is sick and oppressed and dying and impoverished. We in America are wealthy and comfortable beyond what most people in the world can even imagine. In the single season of life, we are freer than we’ll ever be to give our lives to those in need and become Christ’s advocates for the least around the world.

But we don’t use our advantage for that cause. Instead we sit around complaining about petty concerns and evaluating our own emotions. We attend retreats that are all about how we can feel better about ourselves and live more fulfilled lives. We read books about how we can somehow find the right guy. We spend hours online frittering our time away in endless social networks. We waste countless hours at the mall, snatching up the latest trends and trying to become more appealing to the opposite sex. We live a life completely focused on self. Meanwhile, children are starving, women are being prostituted, and countless families around the world are ripped apart by disease and poverty.

God has not called us to build our lives around the pursuit of our own selfish desires, but to be poured-out sacrifices for His kingdom.

In your single years, more than ever, you have the ability to give your life for them; to pour out your time, your energy, your love, and your resources to those that have God’s special favor . . . the poor. Are you using this gift for the benefit of those in need, or are you squandering it on yourself?

Remember the evil city of Sodom in the Old Testament? The one that was destroyed by God’s fury with fire and brimstone? Few of us are aware that God was angry for something beyond just immorality. As it says in Ezekiel:

This was the iniquity of your sister Sodom: She and her daughter had pride, fullness of food, and abundance of idleness; neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy. (Ezekiel 16:49)

I don’t know about you, but to me that description couldn’t fit American Christianity any better. We are proud, focused on self, consumed with our wealth and comforts, we live in an abundance of idleness and shallow pleasure, and we are indifferent to the plight of the needy around the world. And once you see the end of Sodom, it makes you a bit uncomfortable to realize that America is on the very same path.

So I challenge you today to evaluate the direction of your life, remembering that it is not your own, and that it has been bought with a price with the very blood of Christ.

If you have read the book Set Apart Femininity, you might remember the chapter about the Sacred Claim that God has upon the life of every young women who yields her existence to Him. Here is how it is explained it in that book:

When we partake of holy communion, we are not just remembering what Christ did for us. We are stating to our Master that through this covenant, our body and blood are His to spend as He chooses. His body and blood for us, Our body and blood for Him.

Paul says, ‘do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ?’ (I Cor. 6:15 NKJV)

We are the Body of Christ. We are His hands and feet. What do Christ’s hands and feet do? They bind wounds. They offer forgiveness. They set captives free.

They heal the sick. They minister to children. They seek out the sinner. They drive out evil from the temple of God. They walk the road to Calvary. And they are pierced through that we might be saved.

If you have chosen the set-apart path of a woman who fears the Lord, your life is not your own. The Spirit of Christ has a claim upon you. You have a call upon your life; you have a job to do. He has called you to minister His love to those in need. This sacred claim is the highest privilege we could ever receive. We can never repay what Christ did for us on the Cross. But because He has made us His hands and feet to this world, we have the incredible opportunity to give to others the very same astounding, transforming love that He gave to us.

So how do we respond to such a high calling? My first challenge to you is to dedicate your singles years (and all the years beyond, but it starts with where you are at today) to be poured out for the glory of Christ. Are you willing to lay all your own pursuits upon the altar and allow Him to make your body a living sacrifice? This is not a decision to take lightly. This is not just something that should be theoretical in your life. This decision will very likely require a radical shift in direction; a painful letting go of comforts and dreams. And it may very well mean that you must forgo your constant striving to find an earthly prince in exchange for a more “hidden” life of sacrificial service to Christ. It may mean becoming far less “available” for guys to notice you, and far more available for Jesus Christ’s purposes. This commitment may call you to a remote village in Africa, or an orphanage in Haiti, or an inner-city slum. God’s sacred claim may ask you to pour your life out for one special-needs child, or give your life to rescue hundreds of enslaved child prostitutes

God’s word says, “To whom much is given, much will be required.” We are the ones to whom much has been given. Modern advertising and pop-culture constantly tries to imply that we aren’t “there yet” – that we need to keep acquiring more and more material wealth. As a result, most of us don’t realize how much we truly have in comparison to the rest of the world. Even those of us that are not considered wealthy by America’s standard are among the wealthiest people that have ever existed in all of history.

A lot of us subconsciously say, “If I ever saw a person in need of food or clothing, of course I would help them!” But for those of us who live in middle-class suburban America, those opportunities don’t come along very often. And it’s all too easy to simply forget about the need that is out there because we are too preoccupied living our own lives and taking care of our own needs.

If you have struggled with discontentment in your singleness, one of the best solutions outside of cultivating daily intimacy with Jesus Christ is to forget about yourself and focus instead on serving and loving people in need. It’s somewhat counter-intuitive, but it works! Putting others’ needs above your own doesn’t lead to disappointment and misery, but to unmatched joy and fulfillment.