I have this bad habit.  I’m not sure where or when I developed.  I’m sure it has something to do with having two older brothers.  But anyway, somwhere in life I began assuming the worst.  What I mean is that when something unexplainable happens or when someting undesirable occurs, I assume the worst.  

However, I assume the worst in small situations, not big deals.  Like if my wife is late coming home and I don’t know why, I don’t immediately begin thinking she’s had an accident.  But if I can’t find the TV remote I ask, “Who took my remote control?”  As if someone broke into my house only to take my remote control.  If I walk out to my truck and a tire is low I wonder if someone slashed my tire.  If I’m in a restaurant and make brief eye contact with a stranger and then later see that person laughing, I assume they are laughing at me.  I don’t get paranoid about my healthy or the safety of my family.  Its more of a egocentric paranoia.  I’m not proud of it, but I bring it up because I think we all experience it in one way or another.

We all have moments when we think someone is out to get us.  Just like we all have moments when we think that we’re the greatest thing to come to earth since sliced cheese.  At the root is a belief that life is about “me,”  that others are here for “me,” that anything that exists is only for “my” enjoyment.  As a result, anytime or me-world is threatened, we react in the most terrible ways.  We say awful things.  We give dirty looks.  We gossip.  We honk our horns and make hand gestures.

The truth is, there is no “me.”  There is only “us.”  If we were meant to be a bunch of me’s, then I think God would have designed the world differently.  We would begin life by just sprouting up out of the ground with everythign we need already instilled in us.  But that’s not how God designed it.  We begin life born into a family, starting our lives physically dependant on other people, having to learn from others how to live life, and then living life in a community.  There is no “me,”  Only “us.”

As the holidays come up, I encourage you be an “Us” more than a “Me”