Daily Devotional

My parents had a set of stock phrases they used on myself and my siblings growing up. (My guess is that your parents probably did, too.) I still remember many of them: “Obey all the way, right away, with a good attitude.” “If you make a mess, you clean it up.” “M.Y.O.B (Mind Your Own Business).” One phrase, however, has stuck with me more than most: “It’s not about you.”

I think most children (and, frankly, some adults) believe that the world revolves around them. Young Mark was no exception. I was uber-competitive and would do whatever it took to win, regardless of other people’s feelings. The oldest of five children, I could be passive-aggressive and manipulative, especially with my younger siblings. Young Mark was admittedly pretty gifted and very bright, but he was also extremely arrogant. I was a prideful know-it-all who loved to show off. In each of these situations, the phrase “it’s not about you” became my parents’ weapon of choice for deflating my gigantic ego. “It’s not about you” was used to teach me humility, to think about others instead of just myself – exactly the exhortation Paul gives in Philippians 2.

I think the power of the phrase “it’s not about you”—in Paul’s words, “count others more significant than yourselves”—is its ability to cut to the root of the issue. Young Mark’s “about me” behavior was ultimately the product of pride and selfishness. While not synonymous, these words both describe the orientation of the heart toward itself: an orientation with which we all are born and with which believers continue to struggle. And this orientation is, in my opinion, the origin of all human sinfulness. It is the substitution of the self for God as King of my heart and life, thus violating the first of the Ten Commandments (“You shall have no others gods before Me”). This pride, according to C.S. Lewis in Mere Christianity, “leads to every other vice. It is the anti-God state of mind.” Essentially, all sin is saying to God that we prefer our own way to His way. That we know better than He does. That my life is about ME, not him or anyone else. “It’s not about you,” then, strips away our pretenses and lays bare the true condition of the rebel human heart.

Not only does “it’s not about you” reveal our heart problem, but it also reminds us of the solution. If it’s not about me, then it must be about someone (or Someone) else. For young Mark, this meant taking my focus off of myself and pay attention to those around me. For us as believers, it gently reminds us that God sits on the throne of our life. It points us toward the opposites of pride and selfishness. Humility: not a self-degradation, but a proper view of oneself, especially when faced with an almighty, holy God. And selflessness: a genuine concern for others over and above one’s own needs or wants. Pursue these, and we’ll be well on our way to fulfilling the Great Commandments of Jesus: to love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and to love our neighbor as ourselves (Matthew 22:37–40). And as Paul points out in the rest of Philippians, what better model to follow for this than Jesus himself? Jesus’ willingness to leave His heavenly glory, to experience poverty, rejection, and shameful death, is the ultimate expression of humility and selflessness. Everything Jesus did was to glorify His Father (John 17:4) and to serve and not be served (Mark 10:45). In other words, Jesus perfectly modeled what it looks like to live like “it’s not about you.”

I am so grateful to my parents for introducing me to “it’s not about you.” While I’ve outgrown their weaponization of the phrase against my bad behaviors, I’ll never outgrown my need to be reminded of it daily. If we desire to let God rule in our lives and not our own sinful selves, it’s a phrase I think we all need to hear more often.

English Standard Version (ESV)The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.