Transferring Your Self-Love To Love of Christ

Most of us love ourselves. In fact, in this day and age, most of us are complete and total narcissists and we don’t even know it (so you know it’s true). Have you ever asked yourself these questions: “why do I feel unhappy,” “why am I not fulfilled,” “why do I feel depressed?” You are so preoccupied with yourself you fail to realize that is your downfall.

The hardest fight of our lives is turning this dial off. It’s shutting down these thoughts and focusing on something Greater.

You sometimes hear this with new parents. It’s not about me anymore, it’s about my kids: and the parents will do something “good” for the children, sacrificing their own self-will for the safety or health or happiness of the child. They don’t care if they are happy or not so long as the child is happy. Because they love the child with a love that “only a parent knows.”

Almost no one applies this same line of thinking to God. To be fair, most people don’t believe in God but even if they do, transferring your self-love to love of Christ is still extremely difficult. Even knowing or realizing that you have unmitigated self-love is extremely difficult but there are a few signs:

There is one way to make a test: if your peace of mind is troubled, if you become dejected or perhaps a little angry if for some reason you have to give up performing the good deed you had planned, then you know that the spring was muddy. - The Way of the Ascetics

It goes back to self-will. Even if you aren’t a Christian, you can acknowledge that if something goes wrong and you are angry because of it, it’s because whatever it was didn’t go your way.

You wanted it to go a certain way and it did not and you are upset. The external circumstance is simply that: an external circumstance. You are the only who lost your inner peace over it not going the way that you wanted.

If you want to know why, then read this paragraph:

Do you understand now? If you are upset by some external circumstance getting in the way of your own wishes - “to study, to work, to rest, eat or do a service to my fellowman,” or, to lift weights, to travel somewhere, to not get stuck in traffic, to [insert anything], by someone cracking a joke, something “bad” happening, etc. - then you know, you aren’t focused.

But for the person who has found the narrow way that leads to life, that is to God, there is only one conceivable hindrance, and this is his own, sinful will.

It’s so simple and yet contained within this chapter is the entire battle for our soul. Here is a quote from the article, On The Will of God:

How are you to know if you are living according to the will of God?

Here is a sign: if you are distressed over anything it means that you have not fully surrendered to God's will, although it may seem to you that you live according to His will.

He who lives according to God's will has no cares. If he has need of something, he offers himself and the thing he wants to God, and if he does not receive it, he remains as tranquil as if he had got what he wanted.

The soul that is given over to the will of God fears nothing, neither thunder nor thieves nor any other thing. Whatever may come, 'Such is God's pleasure,' she says. If she falls sick she thinks, 'This means that I need sickness, or God would not have sent it.'

Think of Christ’s time here on Earth (taken from The Way of the Ascetics):

• born on straw

• fasted forty days

• watched in prayer through long nights

• healed the sick

• drove out evil spirits

• had nowhere to lay his head

• let himself be spat upon, scourged and crucified

Think you far you are away from that. Ask yourself continually anew: Have I watched in prayer a single night? Have I fasted a single day? Have I driven out a single evil spirit? Have I unresistingly let myself be insulted and beaten? Have I truly crucified the flesh and not sought my own will?

Like I said before, this book actually brought me back from a period of laziness and despondency. It really shook me to the core and showed me the error of my thinking. The picture below is a page I randomly read that sort of “restarted” me:

I was asking all the time, “am I happy?” or “why do I feel this way?” It was an obstinate will to personal happiness.