Self-centeredness

“Self-centeredness by its very character makes you blind to your own being while being hypersensitive, offended, and angered by that of others" [Timothy Keller, “The Meaning of Marriage”].

                I remember some people said ‘Marriage is the grave of life.’  I am not sure why they said so, but it seemed obvious that they viewed the marriage negatively.  But I think that saying positively.  So when someone said to me 'Marriage is the grave of life,' I used to joke and told him to have resurrection faith.  There are two reasons why I said so.  The first reason is that since a man and a woman are married and formed one flesh in the Lord, I think they must dig their grave deeply.  And I think the couple must throw all things that are obstacles and hindrances into that grave one by one in order to the unity of their marriage.  Here, one of the good ways for the couple to realize what are the obstacles and hindrances in keeping the marriage unity is marital conflicts.  In other words, the couple should learn each other more deeply through marital conflicts, so that they can know what to throw away into the grace in order to love each other.  Among the things to be thrown away, what we want to thinking about is "self-centeredness".  The more the couple throws their self-centered things one by one into the grave, the more they will be able to keep their unity in the Lord.  The second reason is that as the couple discards their self-centered (selfish) things into the grave, the selfless love of the Lord is "resurrected" (?) and thus they can love each other with the sacrificial love of the Lord.  When they do that, I think that the couple can keep their unity in the Lord.

                So what is "self-centeredness"?  I would like to consider the above quotation by Rev. Timothy Keller in two ways:

                First, self-centeredness blinds us to see ourselves.

I met my wife by the grace of God and we got married in the Lord.  And when we went to the honeymoon, we fought on the second day.  The reason we fought was because I wanted to watch an action movie called "Speed" so I went down to the hotel and rented the video in the hotel room (there was a free lending room on the first floor of the hotel) while my wife wanted to go to around the island with the rented car since we flew all the way to Maui Island, Hawaii.  It is the first time that we fought because each of us wanted to do different (not wrong) things.  At that time, I didn’t know how to fight well, so I went out to the window veranda and lie down on the couch.  And my wife chased me out, and she was angry and said something to me (I don’t remember).  Then I raised my book in order cover my face and not to see my wife looking at me with her angry face.  Haha.  But I remember my wife got angrier.  So we fought during our honeymoon.  The result was that I lost so we drove around in the island.  I only remembered only one place that we went and that was the black sand beach where my wife wanted to go.  The reason why I still remember the black sand beach is because when my wife mentioned it to me I thought the black sand beach is huge.  But when we went there, I never saw such a small sandy beach in my life.  Haha.  I was expecting a lot (since I didn’t know how to travel) but when I arrived, I saw the small black sand beach for the first time in my life. Hahaha.  This was the first time that we fought since we met six months and got married.  And when I reflect back, I see how obvious self-centered person I am.

When I think of my self-centeredness, as pastor Timothy Keller said, my own self-centeredness has made me blind not to see myself and still does.  Especially, my own self-centeredness has blinded me not to see how selfish I am and how I love my wife selfishly.  I don’t know how much everything I say to my wife, what I expect from her, what I ask, etc., is more for my own self than for my wife.  Rather, my self-centered tendency makes me to look at my wife with my own selfish standard.  And that tendency makes me to judge her with my own subjective and selfish standard, and eventually make me to complain in my heart and through my lips.  What is really dangerous is that the self-centeredness makes me to think that I am right and she is wrong even though we are just different.  So, even in my mind, I criticized and even condemned my wife that she was ‘wrong' even in my mind.  Nevertheless, the self-centeredness doesn’t allow me to realize that I am sinning against God and my wife in this way.  And my self-centeredness only reveals my self-righteousness to my wife.  This self-centeredness has made me not see myself and still does.

                In the midst of this, the indwelling Holy Spirit is transforming me to be more the Lord-centered person and not self-centered, wife-centered, etc., because the Spirit enables me to fight with my own self-centered tendencies and to win little by little.  And the Holy Spirit makes me think of my wife as a priority rather than giving priority to myself because the Spirit changes me little by little from selfish tendency to selfless tendency.  Although it is still far away to go, the Holy Spirit makes me to think more in my wife’s perspective that my own perspective.  In a word, the indwelling Holy Spirit is making me to deny myself, taking my own cross and love my wife.  The Holy Spirit makes me to love my wife with the love of God by bearing the fruit of the Spirit that is, love in me.  And the Spirit not only makes me to look at my wife with the eyes of love, but also makes me to want to love my wife more and more with the love of God.  Therefore, the Holy Spirit makes me to taste the joy of loving my wife with His love.  So how can we say that marriage is the grave of life? Haha.  It is more appropriate to say that marriage is a well-watered garden of love (Jer 31:12).

                Second, self-centeredness makes us to be sensitive, be offended and making us to be angry because of the other person.

                I still remember that when I was in college my Christian club advisor said that a married couple could fight over because of the lid of the toilet.  When I heard that, I couldn’t understand it.  How could the couple fight over the toilet lid?  However, when I actually got married, I became more and more aware of how many small elements the couple can fight over.  There were times when I thought that how the couple can be so different.  So I even bought the books that the women wrote for the women to read because I wanted to know more about my wife.  But those books were not exactly explaining my wife.  Of course any book cannot explain my wife perfectly.  The reason is because I married to one and only wife among the many women, and there is no one like her in this world.  Haha.  That was how much I wanted to know my wife, the unique woman.  And I still feel the same.  Actually, I want to know my wife now more than before.  Now, my wife and I live together, accepting many differences from each other.  Here, accepting each other’s differences can mean that we understand each other’s differences more than before, but also it means that we gave up trying to fix each other according to our own standards. Haha.  So it seems that we have not fought since the end of last year or so (I don’t remember clearly).  Rather, we are happy in the Lord right now.

                But in the beginning of the marriage, we fought a lot.  Especially when we use to live in Korea (year 2001-2003), we have a lot of marital conflict.  I still remember that one Saturday afternoon when I came home after finishing the church ministry, my wife said many things in anger (I don’t remember what she said).  As I was listening to her, I remember I prayed to God like this:  'God, I cannot love that woman with my love.  Please help me to love her with Your love.’  Haha.  At that time, I didn’t know why my wife was so angry at me that she poured out some words to me.  I didn’t even try to understand her heart and circumstance.  I only thought in my position: 'I was doing church ministry all day from the Morning Prayer and I just came back home.  What did I do wrong to her that she is angry at me.’  I couldn’t understand why and I just thought about it in my perspective.  I couldn’t even think about my wife’s circumstance that she came to Korea that is like a foreign country to her and was raising our three children alone.  I couldn’t think about her heart that she was waiting for me to return home all day.  I should understand her heart, feeling and circumstance at least little bit so that I could speak to her gently and wisely with warm heart.  But I just thought about myself.  I was selfish.  I didn’t know what she was going through (She later told me when we came back to US that she was depressed when she lived in Korea).  That was how much I didn’t care for my wife.  I didn’t think much about my wife in her position.  That was how much I lived self-centered life.  So when we had conflicts, I reacted very sensitively to what she said to me, whether verbal or nonverbal.  I was overreacting.  I couldn’t figure it out why my wife said what she said to me.  In the meantime, I was overburdened and was hurt by my wife's words.  One day, after returning to the US, we had marital conflict.  I remember I told my wife, ‘What you said to me was like my heart was stabbed with dagger and my heart really hurts.’  Guess what she said to me?  She said ‘Thank you for telling me.’  Haha.  I was surprised by what she said because I thought that meant that she didn’t know what she said was hurting my heart.  But later when I thought about it, I think she said ‘Thank you’ to me because she knew how to love me more.  My wife had been concerned about managing anger from the beginning of our marriage (when she finds out that I share this story with a lot of people like this, I am not sure how she will respond  ...).  Of course, she has righteous anger too.  When we had conflicts, my wife sometimes got angry and let the words out to me at the beginning.  But she didn’t hold grudges.  But I held grudges.  During those times of conflicts, my wife and I were both over sensitive to each other, were angry at each other (as my wife said, she was angry at the outside but I was angry at the inside) and hurt each other’s heart.  The reason was because each of us was so self-centered.

I believe that now both my wife and I got lot improved due to the sanctifying work of the indwelling Holy Spirit (Of course, both of us must fulfill our responsibilities as husband and wife until we die).  Now, we aren’t that overreacting to each other, hurting each other and angry with each other.  Rather, now, by the grace of God and the work of the Spirit, we are sensitive to one another, comforting each other's heart and making each other happy.  Above all, my wife and I are experiencing the better horizontal relationship with each other because our vertical relationship with the Lord is getting better than before by God's grace.  Especially since the year my wife has started Calligraphy, I am more aware that God is working in my wife's heart and life.  I see that God loves my wife more than anybody else in this earth and that God touches her heart and guides and works in her life.  As a result, my wife has a lot of bright smile on the outside that is from the inside.  And I feel that she loves me more than before with the love of God.  In particular, I see her understanding me, accepting me, loving me, obeying me and sacrificing herself for me.  So how can I say that marriage is the grave of life?  Marriage is a well-gardened of love and happiness.