Today’s question is: What is self-centeredness and how can we overcome it?
Self-centeredness is seeing ourselves as being in the center of everything. This causes us to react to others, to get hurt by others, and to blame others.
This self-centeredness, or focusing on ourselves alone, can be a problem at both ends of the spectrum–either when we think too highly of ourselves or when we think too little of ourselves. In either situation we are placing the focus on ourselves and not on God and others.
Now, how do we overcome self-centeredness?
For one, we need to shift our focus from ourselves to others.
Secondly, we need to die to ourselves and place Christ at the center of our lives instead. Galatians 2:20 reads like this, “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.”
A similar thought is expressed in Matthew 16:24, where we are told to deny ourselves as Christ followers.
When we begin to focus on Him, His plans, and His agenda for our lives, it is easy to deflect the hurts that others inflict on us–either intentionally or unintentionally. We can then move from being self-centered to Christ-centered