stages of life on Self-Centeredness

Consider using the prayer of adoration by itself or as a prelude to the prayer of confession. Prayer of Adoration Lord of yesterday, today, and tomorrow: You alone rule the universe; setting time...

Dear Lord, we come before You today as Your children. We praise You as the God of all creation and the giver of life. You have made us, saved us, and called us to be Your people and to serve in Your K...

Prayer of Adoration Father God … our Abba: You seek us with relentless love – coming after us in Your Son, Jesus. When we are in the pits – You draws us up and out; When we are broken – You fix u...

Those who insist we are even more self-centered today might point to how the titles and focus of our popular magazines have shifted, as photographer Fred Ritchin notes: “I always use a quote by Paul S...

Babies by nature are completely selfish. They think only of themselves and their own needs. They are incapable of giving; they can only receive. That is immature thinking. Unfortunately, many people n...

When you are in your twenties, you live to please other people. When you are in your thirties, you are tired of trying to please others, so you get miffed with them for making you worry about it. When...

Imagine celebrating a birthday party for your child. You buy a cake, invite guests, and give her presents. Now imagine discussing the party with your spouse later that night. Your spouse asks you what...

I would rather sit on a pumpkin, and have it all to myself, than be crowded on a velvet cushion.

Even though Carl Jung first introduced the terms introvert and extravert back in 1921 (in his now-classic volume Psychological Types), the concepts—especially introversion—crashed into the public’s co...

When I engaged with twenty-somethings, for example, who were just entering the adult years, I found them preoccupied with clarifying their identity. What kind of a man or woman am I becoming, they w...

We can be a little more resistant to calls of duty, though responsibilities, too, can help us keep going. But if we tend to be superconscientious, we can relax a little…When we do go into social group...

A large part of the problem is that we’ve lost much of our ability to think deeply. We’ve forgotten the art of deep and focused mind-management. We want things fast, quick, now. We often don’t want to...

Leave your pride, ego, and narcissism somewhere else. Reactions from those parts of you will reinforce your children's most primitive fears.

In this excerpt from Jay Y. Kim’s book, Analog Church , the author shares about an experience at a local restaurant after being convicted of his own smartphone use at home, keeping him from being p...

Every baby starts life as a little savage. He is completely selfish and self-centered. He wants what he wants when he wants it: his bottle, his mother's attention, his playmate's toys, his unc...

Since her first grief had brought her fully to birth and wakefulness in this world, an unstinting compassion had moved in her, like a live stream flowing deep underground, by which she knew herself an...

Current research indicates that personality traits are hardwired; they’re largely hereditary and remain relatively constant throughout our lives.1 If we’re outgoing or reserved, energetic or subdued, ...

The three immutable facts: You own stuff. You will die. Someone will get that stuff.

Paul Tripp argues in Parenting that a common cause of dysfunction in families is that parents (often unconsciously) adopt a view he calls the “ownership view” of parenting. In effect, it is acting a...

I never considered myself a perfectionist before I had children. Perfectionism was someone else’s problem. It was the affliction of those pasty-faced library moles that haunted the campus stacks on Sa...

At some point in childhood we all make the powerful discovery that we can manipulate the truth about ourselves.

There is no better exercise for strengthening the heart than reaching down and lifting people up. Think about it; most of your best friends are those who encourage you. You don’t have many strong rela...

Sometimes we have to “step over” our anger, our jealousy, or our feelings of rejection and move on. The temptation is to get stuck in our negative emotions, poking around in them as if we belong there...

My wife and I once knew a single woman, Anna, who wanted desperately to have children. She eventually married, and contrary to the expectations of her doctors, was able to bear two healthy children de...

Lifelong family friends own more than a thousand acres of land deep in Southern Mississippi, which they refer to as “the estate.” There isn’t a holiday get-together that passes without the family meet...

Childhood happiness has become the scorecard by which adults measure their success or failure as parents . . . Constantly striving to please your kids turns them into your boss. Their happiness become...

Inside every child is an “emotional tank” waiting to be filled with love.

Some of us are interested in religious studies because we are interested in people. People do religious things; they symbolize and ritualize their lives and desire to be in a community. What piqued my...

“When you blow out the candles in that 50th birthday cake your first thought is going to be, ‘The fewer people I have anything to do with, the better off I’m going to be.’” *for contrast (and...

Suffering makes immature love grow into mature loves. Immature unearned love is egotistic. It’s the kind of love children have, demanding and wanting-and wanting instantaneously.