Title: Poor Me!/ Topic: Self-Centeredness

To my readers: I have been "offline" for several weeks due to a computer crash. My hardrive was replaced and I have just recently finished reinstalling all my software and my journal forms for my blog. I am starting up posting my daily journals again and hope you will enjoy them. Thank you.

Today’s Reading: Genesis 3; Genesis 4; Genesis 5; Luke 2

Scripture: Genesis 4:6-16
6 Then the LORD said to Cain, "Why are you angry? Why is your face downcast? 7 If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must master it."
8 Now Cain said to his brother Abel, "Let's go out to the field." And while they were in the field, Cain attacked his brother Abel and killed him.
9 Then the LORD said to Cain, "Where is your brother Abel?" "I don't know," he replied. "Am I my brother's keeper?"
10 The LORD said, "What have you done? Listen! Your brother's blood cries out to me from the ground. 11 Now you are under a curse and driven from the ground, which opened its mouth to receive your brother's blood from your hand. 12 When you work the ground, it will no longer yield its crops for you. You will be a restless wanderer on the earth."
13 Cain said to the LORD, "My punishment is more than I can bear. 14 Today you are driving me from the land, and I will be hidden from your presence; I will be a restless wanderer on the earth, and whoever finds me will kill me."
15 But the LORD said to him, "Not so ; if anyone kills Cain, he will suffer vengeance seven times over." Then the LORD put a mark on Cain so that no one who found him would kill him. 16 So Cain went out from the LORD's presence and lived in the land of Nod, east of Eden.

Observation: Cain has just murdered his brother in cold blood. What's even more disturbing is that he seems to have no remorse over it because he callously replies to God's inquiries as to Abel's whereabouts with an offhand rhetorical question about not being his brother's keeper. When God gives him his punishment, Cain goes into fits about how overly harsh it is. This shows the heights of his self-centeredness. His brother had his life taken from him but Cain gets to live and he has the audacity to complain that he is being unfairly persecuted! Amazing! What is more amazing is that God shows care for Cain's life by promising severe retribution for anyone who would dare to touch Cain.

Application: When I am concentrated on how everything is affecting ME instead of how it might be affecting others, I am operating in an arrogant pride that will skew my perceptions of everything. I cannot connect with God properly because I cannot understand him at all. Like Cain, I will perceive him as unfair and unrighteous. I will also not be able to maintain good relationships with people. I will pour out unrighteous criticism and judgments on them as Cain did to his brother Abel. Arrogance will allow me only to see that my view is supreme and “right”. I will completely lose the ability to understand or accept anyone else's point of view.

Prayer: Father, help me to catch any thoughts of self-centeredness and arrogance before they get a hold of me and blind me to truth. I will never be able to truly love anyone else, or to receive the love of others, if I operate in the deception that comes when I'm focused on ME. Forgive me for the times when I have fallen into this trap of the enemy. I so want to please you and to know you.
This I pray in Jesus’ name, Amen.