Happy New Month!

The 1980s and 1990s are generally proclaimed as the era of self, where themes and concepts like self-discovery, self-actualization, and self-fulfillment took the main stage.

A seed is always justified by its fruits. At the beginning of this new paradigm, it looked very harmless and even helpful, but when you look at how decadent and destructive it has evolved, over the years into what we are seeing today; baseless ideologies of gender dysphoria, pro-choice, expanded homosexuality, etc. If we are being genuinely honest, the “me” and ‘self’ movement has bred a level of selfishness and individualism that has only been heightened in this decade.

It all started with one thing, the exaltation of self. One can genuinely ask, “Well, is this bad? Am I wrong to be pre-occupied with understanding, loving, and appreciating myself?” The answer is yes.

So a lawyer asked Jesus a wonderful question in Matthew 22:34–40, what is the greatest commandment of all? Now the explanation of the question is not for Jesus to give mere ideological instruction, a commandment is set forth with the intent of being followed. The lawyer was asking Jesus, what are the principal truths that we must pattern our lives after? In His answer, Jesus expressed an order of defining existence that, if distorted, will lead to the exact same things we are seeing today. His answer was love God and love people as you love yourself.

Again consistent with this self-aggrandizing ideology, most people say, oh you can only love people to the extent to which you love yourself. Actually, what Jesus was setting forth here is that your fulfillment is locked up in service to God and service to humanity. The idea of jettisoning these two faculties of defining existence in pursuit of self-actualization is a farce that cannot hold or even if it looks like it holds, as we are seeing today, will sooner come crashing down like a pack of cards.

So, Jesus was in essence saying that the way you show that you truly love yourself is the extent to which you love God and love people. Jesus didn’t assign a commandment to loving yourself, instead loving yourself was put in positional reference to loving people.

Love God

The entire concept of humanity is derived; humans came into existence because a Sovereign being; God, used Himself as a reference in creating humanity. No other element of creation has such a unique creation story. So God looked at Himself and said, let’s create man based on our image (Genesis 1:26). So humanity can’t find and fulfill purpose just by placing itself on a pedestal and looking upon itself.

The concept of self is unreliable because it morphs as you cross different sociological divides, but God’s standard of definition is a constant line that runs through dispensations, cultures, income classes, and age groups because He is true. What is true about God in Warri, is true about God in New York, Bangladesh or Durban, if it’s true in GMT, it’s true in GMT+4.

The only way a product’s use can be ultimately understood is by constant reversion to its manual or its manufacturer, and any attempt to utilize a product outside of these constructs is futile and would always lead to depravity. To look for ourselves outside God is to look into nothingness.

Have you also noticed that a common trait across most of these self-ideologies is that it always starts with a rebellion against God and a departure from Him? There’s a misunderstanding of the word, that if not reconciled through well sought out counsel, morphs into a disagreement that then leads to a misalignment. It should then follow that, to truly understand ourselves is to journey into God because that is where we came from. A true and genuine quest for self-appreciation and not the perverse one should lead to God appreciation, shouldn’t it? The deeper I long to know who I am should translate to depths in my devotion.

Another thing we see is how the love of God transcends emotion and is translated into ideation, reason, action-taking, and initiative because Jesus says loving God is not just in the heart, it’s also in the soul and in the mind. This is another slant of conversation.

Love People

The second level of definition here that Jesus set forth was community. This concept is lightly underscored by how the likes of Nelson Mandela were celebrated because they really unleashed the power of their humanity by spending their lives to elevate their communities in a measure.

Community installs a sense of collective duty, and accountability. A sense of community first tells you that you do not live alone. Imagine how odd you will feel realizing that you walk or drive down the streets alone, or your children are taught in a classroom all by themselves and they just assume improved knowledge. The expectation that there should be a teacher already justifies the existence and import of a community. We are all a result of the collective contribution of a group of people, this can be additive or damaging. No one can exist as an island, regardless of whether or not you interact with your social circles, you still benefit or not from those circles.

To appreciate the sense of community is to know that our actions or inactions have ripple effects, and the improvement of the community is in effect the improvement of ourselves. Jesus was saying that your community is actually an extension of your body, and what we want for ourselves is the same level of input we must invest in our community. Because hurt people hurt people. So if you hurt people, you are actually sowing a seed for your hurt sometime down in the value chain. It may not happen to you directly, but it would find its way around to you. The way to keep yourself safe is to ensure that you uphold that standard of safety in the community. Sow kindness, and kindness would find its way back to you in return.

These two preliminary pathways of existence chart our course into the discovery of who we are.

Summarily, I realize that love is not a feeling, or just an action. Love is a plane of existence and it’s at the intersection of its God-ward and people-ward expression that we step into true fulfillment.

Have a productive and love led week!

Olayinka Adebayo

@layinkadebayo