If We Are the Body...

So I had a revelation today, after a heartbreaking experience and a long talk with my two best friends. It kind of a re-revelation, but that's not the point. Here is the point:

Go to almost any church and visit a college or young adults class/service/gathering/whatever, and you are likely to see a trend... No one will talk to you.
If you are lucky enough to come with someone, they will often walk you around and introduce you, but sometimes not... If you go to a group and know someone there, that is helpful but sometimes not reliable, because they may or not even talk to you, much less introduce you to other people.
If you come alone... GOOD LUCK.

We get soo caught up in our own little worlds and our own little groups of friends that we fail to notice new people in the room. In the building. In the world...
You see, I have heard (and believe it to be infallibly true) that college [and I add pre-career young adulthood] is THE most self-centered time in your life. (I'm not saying everyone this age is self-centered, let me finish.)

When you're in college, you are focusing on stepping out on your OWN, become your OWN person, meeting your OWN needs, deciding on YOUR major, making YOUR new friends, paying for your OWN stuff (sometimes, lol). Deciding on YOUR career, YOUR mate, YOUR future.....
discovering YOUR personality, YOUR needs, YOUR wants, YOUR likes, YOUR dislikes, and wanting to find/finding and marrying someone who makes YOU happy... As I mentioned before, everyone in college and young adulthood is NOT selfish. That's not what I'm saying. Neither is seeking God's will for your life in your career and marriage and everything else a bad thing, it is a very good thing actually. But it IS a self-centered time in our lives. Think about all the things I just listed... am I wrong?

Here is the question, though. If we are becoming, in college and early adulthood, the people we will be for the rest of our lives (as our elders tell us is true, and we should believe them because well, they already did it, why would they all lie), why do we want to develop habits focused on ourselves? Isn't that just going to turn us into self-centered adults, older adults, senior adults, and finally, selfish dead people who show up in heaven (or elsewhere) surprised when it's not all about us?? Should we not, rather, be working on living outward? I'm not saying go help other people find their callings and don't look for your own. Or help all your friends get married but don't find love yourself. No. That's dumb. What am I saying, then?

I believe, with God's help, it is possible for us to live lives that LOVE other people more than we love ourselves (hey, that sounds familiar... oh wait, Jesus said to do that...) As we are going through classes and jobs and dates/mates and church groups and what not, it has to be possible to still find God's will for our individual lives, but live for his global purpose. It HAS to be possible! In any one given moment, is taking five minutes out of my day to be nice to someone REALLY going to ruin my future? Probably not. If I'm the only Jesus that person ever SEES, could it ruin THEIR future? Quite possibly. Which is scarier?

Here's the other thing: if we can't even be nice to other Christian people at church, how in the WORLD do we plan to be nice to someone who believes something different than us? We probably won't... And besides - how do we know that person walking into our sunday school class, singles group, worship service, bible study, fellowship, meeting, whatever ... is truly a believer anyway? Our acts of selfishness and failure to make that person feel LOVED and WELCOME could very well turn that person away from church and from God for weeks, months, years, a lifetime... Oh God, I pray I have not been responsible for any alienation such as this!!

I confess that I have been the self-absorbed person, yes indeed. It STILL happens to me, I admit it! But I pray that God would help CHANGE that in me, and give me an OUTWARD lifestyle, rather than an INWARD one. That's how Jesus lived. And I wanna be like Him.