On the first day of a vacation, I received a phone call that marked the worst publishing experience of my life. The book I’d worked so hard to write had been changed for the worse, and I was told I had no recourse. For the first and only time, I felt the published book would be inferior to the manuscript I submitted. Though I’d faced far more difficult circumstances, it was the low point in my professional life. I was disappointed not only by what had happened but also by how deeply it affected me. If you’ve ever been disappointed about your own disappointment, you understand.
We were at our friends’ house on Maui. Despite the beautiful surroundings, I stewed over this writing project, even though I realized I’d eventually gain perspective. (I did, but not until after the vacation; I just wanted to fast-forward to when I knew I’d feel better!) Meanwhile, I snorkeled for hours a day. That was the only time when the cloud dramatically lifted. Floating among the beautiful fish, turtles, eels, and sharks, and even enjoying that unforgettable ninety minutes of swimming with Molly the monk seal, I lost myself in these creatures and the God who made them. I forgot about myself, my shortcomings, others’ failings, and my disappointments. I left my troubled self on the shore. As long as my face was underwater, I was free and happy. It was only when I got out of the water and came back to “Randy’s world” that my happiness vaporized.
Sometimes I have that same experience of losing myself during quiet times with God. Sometimes I have it when laughing with my family and my friends. Other times it’s when I’m riding a bike or listening to music or a great audiobook.
Over the years, I’ve learned not simply to think less of myself but to think about myself less. When I’m thinking most about Jesus, not me, I’m most happy.
An article about unhappy writers says, “The common theory for why writers are often depressed is rather basic: writers think a lot and people who think a lot tend to be unhappy.” This is a half-truth. People who think a lot about themselves and their plans for wealth and success—e.g., writing a bestselling novel and being mentioned in the same sentence with Hemingway—do tend to be unhappy. But people who think a lot about Christ and His grace, the great doctrines of the faith, and how to love and serve others tend to be happy people. So it’s not thinking that’s the problem; it’s who or what we think about, and how we choose to think about them.
When I contemplate Christ—when I meditate on His unfathomable love and grace—I lose myself in Him—and paradoxically, I find myself. When He’s the center of my thinking, before I know it, I’m happy.
Tim Keller writes,
Don’t you want to be the kind of person who, when they see themselves in a mirror or reflected in a shop window, does not admire what they see but does not cringe either? . . . Wouldn’t you like to be the skater who wins the silver, and yet is thrilled about those three triple jumps that the gold medal winner did? To love it the way you love a sunrise? Just to love the fact that it was done? You are as happy that they did it as if you had done it yourself. . . . This is gospel-humility, blessed self-forgetfulness.
C. S. Lewis said of the humble person, “He will not be thinking about humility: he will not be thinking about himself at all.”
Keller, inspired by Lewis, says, “Gospel-humility is not needing to think about myself. . . . I stop connecting every experience, every conversation, with myself. In fact, I stop thinking about myself. The freedom of self-forgetfulness. The blessed rest that only self-forgetfulness brings.”
Why would we want to think about ourselves, the lesser, when we can think about Jesus, the infinitely greater? This happens directly, when we worship and serve Him, and also indirectly, when we love and serve others for His glory.
When we lose ourselves in God and His Kingdom, as Jesus says, we find ourselves—and, in doing so, we find happiness.
