Transferring our concern for self to concern for others

​I think Jesus and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. have a lot in common. One of those things is they were both very quotable, but neither of them wanted their legacies captured in quotes. Both of them wanted their legacies captured in change.

I wrote the following article last year on Martin Luther King Jr. Day. I wrote it in response to his quote: "An individual has not started living until he can rise above the confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity."

I think today, the day after reading a lot of Dr. King's quotes, is a good day to reflect on the legacy he truly wanted: change.

I wrote...

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I'm kind of a numbers guy. I like data. I love math. And so when I read this quote this morning from Martin Luther King Jr., believe it or not, numbers came to mind.

My numbers.

So I wondered to myself, if there were two columns - one column where I made a mark for every time in my life I've fought to address a concern I had about ME and MY situation in life, and then another column where I made a mark for every time I've fought to address the concerns I had about the broader concerns of ALL humanity - essentially people not named 'me' - what percentage of those marks would be in the 'me' column?

After crunching the data, I'd say I've lived a large portion of my life confined by individual concerns. A scary large portion.

Martin Luther King Jr. says, “Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness.”

In other words, he's saying when we live in this place confined by concerns for ourselves, that is a dark place. It is destructive. But we can all make a choice to walk in the light of being concerned about others.

There is no one reading this right now who has ever been more self-centered and selfish and destructive than I have been in my life.

But I can also say, over the last several years, I've become more concerned about all of humanity. I've become more concerned about what other people have gone through in their past, and what they are going through this very moment. I've spent more time listening to other people tell me about their pain, and less time letting life seemingly strangle me with mine.

I have NOT been able to solve the concerns of all humanity, but I'll say this. The moment you start putting more marks in that column of being genuinely concerned about others more than you are about yourself, you start seeing and feeling a light.

A new light.

I've come to know that light as life. You actually get to start living.

You know, us Christians have this intimidating and overly religious saying about being "born again." It's often offered as sort of a threat on your life. Like, if you're not born again you're not getting into heaven.

I listened to a sermon yesterday and the speaker said "the kingdom tool is sacrificial love." His point was, this Jesus who came to earth so that we could be "born again" - modeled that the way to be "born again" was to give up all concerns about self and start re-investing ALL of those concerns into others.

The entire ministry of Jesus is a story of a man who sacrificed all concerns for PERSONAL well-being to demonstrate nothing but concern and love for ALL human beings.

Jesus demonstrated this idea of "born again" isn't about eternal life - it's about THIS life. Being born again isn't about walking through the gates of heaven, it's about walking out of the gates that confine us in selfishness, and through the gates that confine others in hurt and suffering and oppression and hopelessness.

Light and living are a choice.

Mathematically speaking, it's choosing to put our marks in a different column.