Jesus constantly seeks to remind us that the most important lesson we can learn in this life is that life is not about you. That real life is all about loving, giving, sharing, and serving God and others. My experience of up to 30 years of people-watching is that most of our unhappiness and discontent as human beings come from being preoccupied with ourselves. Life’s misery quota is directly related to our self-centeredness and selfishness. People I meet with the greatest joy, peace, happiness, and the best perspectives on life are people who live like Jesus. I have a friend who lives outside of Atlanta who signed up be a soccer coach for his son’s team. He went to the soccer coaches’ training event put on by the recreation league. The president of the youth league said, “Every child in the league plays an equal amount of time. Your best players and your worst players will play the same amount.” My friend said, “I figured he would go on to say that it was because those players who were not very good need a chance to play.” But instead, the president said, “Those best players need to learn early how to sit out… we believe they need to learn that it’s not about them.” When we learn that it’s not about us, but it’s about the team, we will discover life’s best.
– Dr. Tim Thompson