At the Center of the Universe

(This is my submission for the TAUG magazine's Spring 2011 edition)

I'm not sure when exactly it started. I'm not quite sure what started the process either; the road to hell is gradual. A demon has nested an egg inside my heart. Or more likely, it has always been there, clawing and gnawing its way through.
And suddenly I find myself face to face with it. I find that the ministries which I have undertook have become burdensome. I find the relationships that I have cultivated have become draining rather than invigorating. I find myself measuring the scales of social exchange and finding imbalance too often and wonder when I began keeping count. In perpetual frustration, and further frustrated by my own frustration, I have exchanged the joys of a renewed life for chains, and I can no longer tell if I am building character or destroying it every time another event strains my patience.
The demon has many names. Some, being old-fashioned, call it pride. Some, feeling sympathetic or guilty, call it "being human." Some, attempting to rationalize it, may call it the Id. I used to think that it was selfishness, and certainly that is a quintessential human trait, but I believe it is also because I am still egocentric.
Egocentricism is the inability to see outside of ourselves, to "put oneself in another's shoes." Whereas, selfishness is placing one's own needs and desires before that of others. With the young, this occurs because of their incompletely developed brains. A child sees the pencil roll under the couch, and thinks that his mother also knows that the pencil is under the couch too, because he is unable to understand that unlike him, from where she is, she never got to see the pencil roll under the couch and therefore cannot know that it is there. As the child grows older, the brain quickly matures and he outgrows this developmental occurence.
However, I think that some form of egocentricism still remains with me because even though my brain has matured, my heart has not. How many times, have I been frustrated by a slow driver in front of me only to be embarassed by my own impatience when I notice that the driver is 70+ years old as I finally pass him by? How often have felt abandoned by by friends whose support I expected in my times of trouble but they had own troubles, and how oftenn have I failed to support my friends and neighbors in difficulty because of my own in return?
In immediate feelings I never understand another. As soon as something happens to myself, all things seem different to me. When I myself suffer I do not understand the suffering of another and neither is my own happiness the key to understand the happiness of another. My immediate feeling selfishly understands all in relation to myself.* When my ministry does not go in my envisioned direction, I perceive failure and alienation rather than assessing the needs of those I meant to serve. When my relationships do not meet my expectations, I judge based on my disappointments rather than see their circumstances.
Indeed the combination of my selfishness and egocentricism has formed a formidable barrier between myself and others. My egocentricism continually shoves my own circumstances and needs in my face, and my selfishness relentlessly insists I need to look no further. As I slowly give in, I lose perspective, acclimating to seeing the world with my eyes rather than God's. And as I turn more toward myself and less to God, I find that there is a demon at the center of the universe, and it looks awfully like me.
It would be egocentric of me to think that this demon exists only for me. C.S. Lewis said that the small decisions we make on a daily basis turn us into saints or demons in the long haul. As such, it is not a demon that can be vanquished, but rather be chained and tamed gradually but constantly. I hope to by grace and power of God, by earnest prayer and humble introspection, that we can learn to identify the voice of this danger and overcome it in our daily struggle to glorify Him.