1: Stop thinking about yourself for a hot second.
2: Think about life from the perspective of some other
person.
3: Rejoice with them.
This might seem overly simplistic. It’s not. Rejoicing with
others is very simple, even though it might not be very easy. An exciting job.
The perfect grad program. A wonderful relationship. When the people around you
are getting things that you want but don’t have, it may seem difficult to truly
rejoice with them, but I want to encourage you that deep down, its not really
that complicated. Mostly, you and I just need empathy.
For me, one of the biggest barriers to rejoicing with others
is my own selfishness. Luckily, there is good
news*.
For one thing, you don’t have to cease thinking about yourself FOREVER
and suddenly become some superhuman in order to rejoice with others. If you can
manage it for even a little bit, you are well on your way! My problem is that I
usually make it to step three and am in the middle of rejoicing when all of a
sudden thoughts of myself come crashing back in, and I remember all the reasons
why whatever I am rejoicing over in someone else's life makes my life seem sad or
negatively affects me. At this point, you can choose to remain focused on
yourself, or you can choose to focus on the other person. I’m not suggesting
that you choose emotions (if you can control how you feel, please teach me how!)
but it is much more doable to choose where you continue to focus. More good
news… your emotions come naturally depending on where you are focusing.
Real life example: my best friend recently got engaged! I am
so happy for her! Really, it’s super exciting. Now, does her exciting
relationship make me feel more single? I don’t understand how it is possible
for one to be more single… but yes. ;) Realistically, does her upcoming marriage mean that I won’t be able to spend
as much time with her, and that our relationship will change as she makes a promise
to be someone else’s best friend? Yeah, and that’s sad, because I love her a
lot and it will be hard to share her. So if I only ever look at circumstances from
my perspective—how things make me feel, how they affect my life—it might be
hard to rejoice sometimes. But I love my friend! And if I choose to look at things from
her perspective, I know that this is super awesome, amazing, exciting, and
worth rejoicing over!
The trick is to choose whether you WANT to rejoice with someone
else in the moment or not. You don't have to be a captive to your emotions. I am not
saying that you can’t feel your own emotions… you totally can! The great thing
about rejoicing with others even if it’s hard is that you don’t have to do it
continuously. In the moment, when you are with that other person, you can
rejoice with them in love. There will be another time and place for you to
reflect and feel and process, and it will be valuable to work out your own
feelings then. But at the moment when you are at step three and your own
feelings start to creep in, you can decide that now is not that time, and
continue to…
Step 4: repeat steps 1-3**.
P.S. In case you should need proposal ideas...
* Yes, I completely
intended to make that double entendre. There is some good news in the fact that
it is not impossible to overcome the barrier of your own selfishness and love
those around you. There is better news that in a greater sense, it is
impossible for you by yourself to overcome your selfishness... But God sent his son to live the sinless life that you couldn’t and die so that your sins are forgiven, which frees us love like him. And that, my friends, is the gospel, which literally means “good
news.”
** To be
completely honest, once I have veered off of step three, I usually need to take
a stop back at the cross and remind myself that Christ died for my sins
(including the selfishness that just got me off track) so that I might be
righteous instead of condemned for my failures. And he does that because he
loves me, which motivates me to love others, which takes me back to step one
condemnation-free and with extra motivation. It’s a more complete cycle :)
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