"A man who isolates himself seeks his own desire."
Psalm 18:1
The world's population today is approximately 6.8 billion people. That number is hard to even fathom for the human mind. Some college football stadiums incredibly hold more than 100,000 people and that appears to be an enormous crowd, but it is just a drop in the bucket compared to the global population. There are approximately 6,800 known languages spoken by this massive population. Over 1,600 of these languages are spoken in the country of India alone. When you consider these numbers, it is staggering how big this world is and how much is going on around us that we are not even aware of.
Strangely, however, we foolishly get the idea that the world revolves around us. We become selfish people that think God created the world to make us personally happy, and anyone that gets in the way of our personal happiness is out of line. One of the main messages of Jesus was that we consider others and get our eyes off of self. As a matter of fact, the two great commandments given by Jesus taught us to love God and love others. It did not even say anything about loving ourselves. We are taught from Scripture that we are to love others as we love ourselves. Caring for yourself and your own things comes naturally and that is the way that we have to start looking at how we treat other people.
This passage in Proverbs gives us the instruction to think outside of ourselves. You cannot selfishly isolate your self from the world around you, but you must take others into consideration at all times. While some may be more introverted than others, this portion of Scripture has more to speak of than just our personality. Consider the child that is kicking and screaming on the floor because they did not get the toy they wanted. Who are they concerned about? Obviously they have isolated themselves from the rest of the world and can only think of their own desires. What about the teen that is in rebellion to the rules and regulations established by his parents? He hates the rules because they keep him from his own desires. Consider the man or woman that displays a poor attitude on the job because they don't like the new schedule. Every one else is working the same schedule, but they can only think of their own happiness. What about the believer who decides to neglect their devotional time with God because they have other things to do? They have selfishly put God on the back burner for their own sake.
We must see that to isolate ourselves from all other things is to be selfish and even arrogant. It is to consider all other things unimportant in the light of self.
May you consider others today!
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