The Problem Is Me

I am quick to blame the world when it comes to problems like hunger, murder, and injustice. I become overwhelmed easily with how much wrong there is in the world. No matter what efforts I make, I become discouraged that I can solve the greater human conflict in this world.
But… I realized that I need a change in attitude. The problem isn’t the world. It’s me! I am the problem. I need to start to face myself. As quoted by Donald Miller in Blue like Jazz: “The problem is not out here; the problem is the needy beast of a thing that lives in my chest.  I don’t need to watch the news to see that the world is bad, I only have to look at myself”(26). How can I, a daily sinner in this world, criticize the efforts of of others responsibility in global poverty, when I am a fault daily to these expectations.
I need to question my own motives before others. I spend 95% of my time thinking about myself. But I claim to be a Christian: a follower of Christ. Jesus always put others before himself. If my goal is to be dusty because I am following Christ so closely, than there is a problem. My goal and my lifestyle are not correlating. I need a change in heart. Change in this world must start with the individual. I need true change, true life-giving, God-honoring change.

Lastly, I would like to share a poem by C.S. Lewis, which is more or less a confession. I stumbled upon this poem for the first time this afternoon while reading Blue Like Jazz. 

All this is flashy rhetoric about loving you.

I never had a selfless thought since I was born.

I am mercenary and self0seeking through and through;

I want God, you, all friends, merely to serve my turn

Peace, reassurance, pleasure, are the goals I seek,

I cannot crawl one inch outside my proper skin;

I talk of love- a scholar’s parrot may talk Greek-

But, self imprisoned, always end where I begin.

Nothing will change in this world until you and I figure out what is wrong with the person in the mirror.