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PROGRAM D-7525
If you went to a doctor today and he told you that something you are doing is going to shorten your life and cause you great physical harm, would you not be willing to listen to his advice and abandon that destructive behavior? We’ve seen how bitterness, self-pity, lack of discipline and negativity are always self-inflicted and cause us great harm.
Why do we so often do things that inflict great suffering on us as well as on others? I think, first, because we often aren’t aware of what’s happening. We allow ourselves to be drawn into these destructive behaviors before we realize where we’re heading. Therefore we need to pray for awareness and discernment.
Lately when I find myself embroiled in this kind of self-destructive behavior, I try to catch myself and stop and say: “Why are you doing this? Why are you thinking of wrongs done to you? Why are you feeling sorry for yourself? Why are you focusing on negative things? Why are you refusing to be disciplined? Don’t you realize what this is doing to you?” If you and I can just catch ourselves in this self-destructive behavior, we will make our own lives so much more pleasant and productive and enjoyable.
Then, even when we know we are inflicting suffering on ourselves, we sometimes choose to continue in our destructive behavior because we feel we have a right—a right to be bitter, a right to be lazy, a right to be negative, a right to have a pity party. We don’t want to relinquish our rights; we want to inflict vengeance and somehow we feel that hanging onto these self-inflicted sufferings will punish others, so we continue to inflict suffering on top of other suffering in a very foolish way.
Just ask yourself: “Isn’t life tough enough without making your own life tougher?” That ought to be motivation enough for us to abandon these self-inflicted sufferings. But a much higher motivation, and one that is far more important, is our privilege to be ambassadors for Jesus Christ in our worlds. When we get rid of these self-inflicted sufferings, we are freed up to be more like Jesus, more pleasing to him, a brighter light in a dark world.
Someday we’ll stand before Jesus to give an account for how we lived our life here on earth. I don’t want to be confronted with my unwillingness to abandon these self-inflicted sufferings, do you?
I don’t want to hear that my life was not as effective as it could have been because I insisted on feeling sorry for myself, or being bitter, or being undisciplined or staying negative. Remember, you can get rid of any of these any time you’re willing to, because they are self-inflicted sufferings.
