What is Selflessness?

Recently, I have been struggling to define selflessness.

Jesus gave His all and held nothing back. He loved every one of us and even washed His disciple’s feet. However, what does this look like in my life? Do I keep giving of myself until I have nothing left? As a female, what does this look like, especially in relationships with the opposite sex?

The impetus for these questions was a person I started to hang out with recently. He is blind and a little slow mentally, but he is a nice person and we both love to swing dance. He likes to hug people a lot, and since he is blind, this makes complete sense to me. However, he has also tried to hold my hand as I’m leading him places instead of holding my arm, and even though it made me feel uncomfortable, I let him do it. I think in some ways, I was compensating for my lack of compassion in other areas – not helping the poor as much as I’d like to, not being as loving with my family as I should be, etc.

Also I thought, this is what Jesus would do, right?

Nope, doing good things out of guilt is actually not what Jesus would do. I can be naive sometimes and take one concept in the Bible and apply it to every single situation and take it to an extreme. I am ever so thankful to have Christian friends I can talk to about these things because, as a new Christian, it helps to get a different perspective on things. Most of the people I have talked to about the situation with my blind friend, cautioned me and mentioned that he might be taking advantage of me. As hard as this is to admit, I can see where they are coming from.

Yes, it might feel cruel not giving him a ride to swing dancing every week, but it’s even more cruel to lead him on. I did not intend to lead him on, but looking back on the discussions I’ve had with him, I can see that he is lonely and likes girls a lot. But his loneliness was precisely the reason I had so much compassion on him – I know all too well what it’s like to be lonely and rejected by your peers so I figured that if I could take him dancing and give him the opportunity to meet people, that might help his loneliness and self esteem.

While it’s true that we are social creatures and relationships are important, it is not the bread of life. If I really wanted to help my friend, I would put more priority on praying for him than simply keeping him company or giving his email address to a girl at Qdoba that promised to write him a poem.

The truth is, not all friendships are healthy, especially if the parties involved are desperate, insecure and filled with selfish motives. I am not accusing my friend of all these faults, but I can see that he is insecure to some extent, and knowing that all humans are essentially the same, I can guess that attention from others boosts his self esteem – A LOT. I wouldn’t know that if it wasn’t true for me too, but it’s something I am working on and continually seeking repentance for. Our value does not come from how well-liked we are; it comes from God’s love for us.

My sympathy for my blind friend arose from feeling pity for his lack of friends. I thought that offering him my friendship would make him feel valued, which is true, but in the big scheme of things, it doesn’t really make that much difference since he is already supremely valued by God. I’m sure that he knows he is valued by God because he is a Christian, but it’s something that’s easy for all humans to forget, especially when the mere kind word or friendly hug from a fellow human fills us with incomparable joy.

However, this is not the only joy God wants for us. He can offer us so much more than this, and looking to people for fulfillment is a roller coaster of excitement and disappointment – not only that, but it’s basically idolatry.

So to answer the question, what is selflessness?, I think it’s more than just doing nice things. It’s doing nice things with good motives – not out of guilt and not to fill a hole in someone’s life that should be filled with God. Even if my kindness was not intended to replace God’s love but to demonstrate it, my kindness still may not be the right type he needs, especially if he is misinterpreting it.

Nothing that I nor anybody else could do for my blind friend would fully cure his loneliness because loneliness is a much deeper issue and it’s something that only God can heal. In my pride, I thought I could solve his problems by giving him the opportunity to meet people and by being there to talk through his problems. Because of my experience with overcoming loneliness, I somehow thought this qualified me to prescribe my chosen solution to others.

Yes, having friends does boost your self esteem so it is one solution but it isn’t the solution. The fact is, I have no more value now that I have a million friends than when I had zero. Even though I feel like I have more value and I have higher self esteem, this is simply an emotion and it is not based on truth.

So what’s the next step? I would still like to be his friend, but not if he is unappreciative of the grace of God leading someone as selfish as me to give him rides and talk to him. It seems like he may be somewhat unappreciative since when I refuse to hold his hand or hug him for as long as he’d like, he asks me again five minutes later. Friendship is what I have to offer – if he wants more, then I don’t see how he could ever fully appreciate me as a friend since I will always disappoint him.

Selflessness means putting other’s needs before you own However, true selflessness means doing so in a manner that honors God. So what I’m really doing in this friendship is not fulfilling a need, but creating a need from the expectation I am creating in him to want more. The question arises as to whether I am really helping him at all.