Stop Focusing On Your Self

Recently, I was in a prayer retreat for days with some 300+ prayer warriors and workers in a remote place outside of Seoul. And I was called by the senior pastor to join the rest of his pastoral staff to move around, pray for people and lay hands on them. If any person in that room had a most important reason to be prayed for, it's me! instead I was called beyond myself to pray for others. The result was God's special sense of blessing, revival, and well-being.

One time, the famous psychiatrist Dr. Karl Menninger was asked, "What would you advise a person to do if he felt a nervous breakdown coming?" Like most people, I'm inclined to say to him that he goes to a counselor or seek help somewhere. But Dr. Menninger replied in a different way: "Lock up your house, go across the railway tracks, find someone in need, and do something to help that person."

I've the feeling that most people focus all their attention on themselves. They feel that they're missing things in their lives, so they want to take in as much as they can. Dr. Menninger believed that "generous people are rarely mentally ill people." A person is less likely to be selfish or insecure if he or she is trying to help others. As Dr. Menninger implied, a giving spirit also helps a person to overcome feelings of deficiency or hurt in a positive, healthy way.

"For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it" (Matthew 16:25).