Selfishness

Language warning: The following post contains "cuss words," so read at your own risk. I explained my position on language in an earlier post so if you want to know more, go look at that.

This past week I was at my church's youth camp, which is called Creed Camp, and it was a draining week. I was a co-leader of a group of three 14-15 year old guys who were either new to the church, spiritually immature, unbelievers, or just spiritually murky. The small group times went fine overall and all three claimed to have gotten a lot out of the week. However, now is the time when we see whether what they believe does in fact equal how they live (something talked about the last night of camp).

Now, on to the topic and the reason for my language warning. I am so fucking selfish and self-centered. All this week I practically idolized this girl, who I think I'll begin calling Girl A on this blog, I've liked for months and since the topic of the week was idolatry, I began to see how I was making her an idol and in a much more root way, I was making my desire for that sort of Hollywood "beautiful girl that you love who loves you back will make everything better) bullshit into a really deep idol in my heart. Ironically, she was doing a similar thing by idolizing a guy she broke up with last year but has began to like again in the past couple months. We're close friends and we talked a couple times during the week (though not nearly as much as I desired we would) and we talked through her situation a couple times (painfully for me since she's in the dark about my feelings) and I did my best to help her since I care about her more than I've ever cared about another girl. On the last full day, after some scheduled time alone everyone had to read a section in a book about idolatry (Counterfeit Gods by Tim Keller), I really saw how my idolatry was rampant in my heart and began answering questions we had in the book. As soon as I finished the questions, she walked up to where I was, sat down next to me, and began telling me how the guy she liked was an idol she needed to remove in order to seek God and then she asked whether or not she should tell him to try and get the situation out in the light in order to move on. At this, I began to laugh both inside and out because that is exactly what I had been mulling over the past day or so. She asked why I was laughing and I told her I couldn't tell her and that I might tell her why another time and after some stubbornness on both our parts, she continued with her train of thought. Then I suggested she go talk to one of our mutual friends, an older college girl who is pretty spiritually mature and was actually the leader of Girl A's small group this week. She agreed that it was a good idea and went to talk to her. I'm not entirely sure what they talked about since that was the last full conversation I had with Girl A this week but I saw her later talking one-on-one with the guy and I was told later that she told him and Girl A said that telling him was "healing." After this I was in a relatively good mood because I knew she was making good strides and I was happy for that. However, during the talent show we had and the last night of worship, she sat next to him (not even with someone on her other side like other times in the week) the whole night. This really bothered me and further made my desire to tell her in order to move on myself. After worship, we had small group time and then I went walking around the campus listening to Explosions in the Sky and I decided that I would leave it up to God and that if the opportunity to talk to her one-on-one arose that night I would tell her and if not, I would just white-knuckle and grit my teeth and just try and move on by not texting her or hanging out with her. She yelled down to me from her room as I passed on my walk and then we talked in passing later as everyone was just hanging out outside but I left to go to Wendy's with some of the guys and when we got back she'd gone to her dorm, so I didn't tell her. Then, the next morning, yesterday morning, we all headed back home. I was in a really boring van the way up so I went to be in the van where my friend Daniel and Steven were, so I put my stuff there before other people did. Girl A ended up sitting in the van too, which I sort of expected to see. I got in the van and tried to sit in the back with Daniel, but he dissed me and said he wanted the back to himself, and Girl A, who was sitting by herself in front of him, said she wanted her row by herself so she wouldn't be crowded. So, after half-fake-half-real wrestling with Daniel, I went in sat in the row in front of Girl A, where, hilariously (sarcasm) enough, the guy was sitting. Then later this middle-schooler named Daniel sat with the other Daniel in the back and this rising-Sophmore we all know and like sat next to Girl A, who was fine with him sitting next to her.  I was pissed off for an hour or two until we got lunch but after lunch I started to cool off. Her and the guy talked a bit and she even went so far as to ask me to borrow my phone so they could type little messages back and forth for some reason. That pissed me off but later she started to try and take a nap and I tried multiple times to offer her my pillow and she rejected it each time but then decided to sleep on the floor of the van and asked if she could use my pillow as a sort of blanket/covering since she already had Daniel's pillow. I gave it to her but later Daniel took it from her and woke her up, so a few minutes later I quietly asked to borrow another guy's pillow which I then put back on top of her and let her sleep till we got back, all the while trying to get the idiot's in the back from waking her up. Yeah, I'm totally Mr. Fuckin' All-American right there (sarcasm^10). So, why do I say I'm so fucking selfish and self-centered? Because even though this girl I deeply care about is potentially moving on from this idolized guy and turning back to God, I badly want her to care about me and in a fucked up way to idolize me. I don't want her to bow down to me or anything like that, but I want some of her focus to turn to me for once. All this talk about tearing down idols and seeking God and what am I seeking instead? To selfishly take someone I really care about and be the object of their sin.

Also, lately I've been thinking over the idea of how romantic love and love for God and coexist, but that's for another blog post.