Human self-interest is one of the axioms of the behavioral sciences: It is at the core of economics (we all want stuff so we can live more comfortably), psychobiology (we all want to Marvin Gaye and get it on so we can pass on our genes), and more (we’re all just really obsessed with ourselves).

This of itself is not a bad thing; we don’t blame anyone for wanting to escape poverty, find a spouse/significant other, or otherwise improve their life. It’s only when these desires are taken to extremes, or when they begin to infringe negatively on the lives of others, that we view self-interest as a bad thing: a billionaire who still wants more, a leader who exploits workers for personal gain, or someone who sleeps with as many people as possible just for the thrill.

There are a variety of words in the English language that can be used to describe this kind of behavior, but two that I want to focus on that are used regularly are selfish and self-centered. Often these are conflated and used interchangeably, but a selfish person can be very different than a self-centered one (a selfie, interestingly, is not a person or a trait, though some find it to be equally undesirable).

C.S. Lewis put it well (as he usually does) when he said:

“Selfish, not self-centered… The distinction is not unimportant. One of the happiest men and most pleasing companions I have ever known was intensely selfish. On the other hand I have known people capable of real sacrifice whose lives were nevertheless a misery to themselves and to others, because self-concern and self-pity filled all their thoughts. Either condition will destroy the soul in the end.  But till the end, give me the man who takes the best of everything (even at my expense) and then talks of other things, rather than the man who serves me and talks of himself, and whose very kindness are a continual reproach, a continual demand for pity, gratitude, and admiration.”

Selfishness is an intensification of our natural tendency toward self-interest; self-interest in the sense that we want to have the highest possible standard of living, the most pleasure, or the greatest happiness we can. Selfish people will often go to great, immoral lengths to increase their own status, wealth, or comfort.

Self-centeredness, on the other hand, is an intensification of our natural tendency toward self-interest; self-interest in the sense that we are very very interested in ourselves: our own story, our own personality, our own preferences, actions, experiences, etc. Self-centered people can talk about themselves for ages without ever getting bored (while the ones they speak to only last a few minutes).

Most people recognize that both traits are rather unfortunate and should be eradicated from our temperaments, but selfishness seems to be viewed as the greater of the two evils. As such, people might feel satisfied in their own selflessness (or at least, lack of selfishness), and proceed to wax eloquent of their own goodness, charity, sacrifice, and virtue, dodging one vice while unwittingly diving into another. This is what Jesus refers to when he warns against sounding a trumpet when we do good (Matthew 6:1-2). Avoiding selfishness is admirable, but once we have we must be careful not to be too prideful in our own goodness. Like C.S. Lewis said, the one who does good but speaks only of themselves can be more taxing than the one who taxes everything and speaks of others.

Because we think selfishness is worse, we are less averse to letting self-centeredness silently creep in and take its place. We must, however, guard against both equally. Selfish people are undesirable, but self-centered people are insufferable.

Note: This is a talk I gave in church in December 2019. It was significantly based in Brennan Manning’s book “The Ragamuffin Gospel” and contains several quotes from it. I’ve made some minor adjustments so as to better fit an online format, as well as some minor adjustments in wording and grammar, but it is otherwise untouched and retains it’s original tone and message.

I feel impressed to speak today about God’s love and grace, topics that feel impossible to cover in any depth or range that does justice to their power and scope. I especially feel inadequate to this task, and as such I plead for the Holy Ghost to be present.

I have been studying, reading, praying about this topic for a while now, and I feel I only have a small understanding of the depth and breadth of Father’s love for us. I absolutely do not fully understand it, and my whole life I have struggled to feel it, but I’m working on it, and I have learned and had experiences recently that have helped me to know that it is real, and it is strong, and it is often not at all what I expect it to be.

Jeffrey R. Holland said, “the first great commandment of all eternity is to love God with all of our heart, might, mind, and strength—that’s the first great commandment. But the first great truth of all eternity is that God loves us with all of His heart, might, mind, and strength.”

Do we believe that? Do we trust in it? In my experience, I have often felt it’s very true. For other people. I think, “I know He loves everyone, but how could He love ME? After all I’ve done, after I keep falling into the same sins over and over again, there’s no way.” We believe that we are unworthy of God’s love until we can fix our mistakes by ourselves, and then He will accept us. 

That is wrong.

Christ says to us:
“Come now. Don’t wait until you get your act cleaned up and your head on straight. Don’t delay until you rescue your reputation, until you’re free of pride and lust, of jealousy and self-hatred. Come to Me now in your brokenness and sinfulness. Come now, with all your fears and insecurities. I will love you just the way you are–just the way you are, not the way you think you should be.” (Brennan Manning, The Ragamuffin Gospel)

Our confusion and disbelief that God still loves us even when we sin shows that we misunderstand the reason He loves us in the first place; He does not love us because we are good, He loves us because we are His.

Consider the parable of the Prodigal Son. The son went and spent his inheritance on riotous living, doing who knows what with goodness knows who. And then after losing everything and living in destitution, he decides to go back to his father. He plans what he’s going to say, preparing his speech, and is ready to accept the lowest position in his father’s house, but when he returns, his father sees him from afar and runs to him. His father doesn’t even care what he’s done; he doesn’t ask. He doesn’t even give his son a chance to give his speech and apologize. The father runs to him and embraces him and kisses him. 

So it is with us. God and Christ run to us. They are not concerned with what we’ve done or who we were. They care only that we have turned to them and desire to be good. 

As Ronald A. Rasband said, “God does not really care who you were and what you did. He cares who you are, what you are doing, and who you are becoming.”

As Brennan Manning said, “God wants us back even more than we could possibly want to be back.” (The Ragamuffin Gospel)

This is so much easier to say than to do. Brennan Manning also said, “For those who feel their lives are a grave disappointment to God, it requires enormous trust and reckless, raging [faith] to accept that the love of Christ knows no shadow of alteration or change” (The Ragamuffin Gospel)

I struggle with this constantly. My mind often drifts to the sins and mistakes I can’t seem to overcome, the things that I keep doing over and over, and I feel that disappointment. I ‘know’ God loves me, but I can’t believe it because of all the things I’ve done. That’s when I really experience that need for reckless, raging faith. The active, concentrated belief that He loves me even when I don’t love myself.

It’s hard. Good gracious it’s hard. But it’s true; He loves you even when you don’t love yourself. 

Reverend John Claypool said, “We all have shadows and skeletons in our backgrounds. But listen, there is something bigger in this world than we are and that something bigger is full of grace and mercy, patience and ingenuity. The moment the focus of your life shifts from your badness to His goodness and the question becomes not ‘what have I done?’ but ‘What can He do?’ Release from remorse can happen.” (As quoted in The Ragamuffin Gospel)

It is true that God still ‘cannot look upon sin with the least degree of allowance’ (D&C 1:31), but that doesn’t mean that when we come before Him dirty from sin that He is disgusted by our presence, sending us off to try to clean ourselves up before He accepts us. Instead, He sees that we are dirty from head to toe and helps us clean up; He anoints our head and smiles up at us as He washes our feet. We mustn’t think that we must repent on our own. It is impossible, and He wants to help us.

In stake conference President Stacy Peterson said, “Forgiveness isn’t repentance. The goal isn’t forgiveness, the goal is change.”
It has also been said that, “Repentance isn’t what we do to earn forgiveness, it is what we do because we have been forgiven.” (The Ragamuffin Gospel)

Christ is already there offering us forgiveness, offering us His grace. We just have to accept it.

Now you might think, yeah I know that’s what I have to do, but how do I do it? How do I access God’s grace and allow it to change me?

The first step to accessing God’s grace in our lives, even before the basic primary answers (read the scriptures, pray, and go to church), is to be honest. 

The writer Walter Anderon said, “Our lives improve only when we take chances–and the first and most difficult risk we can take is to be honest with ourselves.” And, I would add, honest with God.

It may seem obvious, but there is no point in trying to hide who we are from God. Yet sometimes that’s exactly what we do. That’s what I’ve done. I become aware of some aspect of myself that I hate, and I don’t want God to think that that’s the kind of person I am, so I never bring it up. I pretend it’s not there. I pretend that, while not perfect, I don’t do things that are that bad. 

But we don’t have to hide from God. We don’t have to pretend we’re something we’re not, or pretend we’re not something we are. Elder Gerrit W. Gong said, “Remember, he knows all the things we don’t want anyone else to know about us–and love us still.” God meets us wherever we may be; he reaches down as far as we have fallen, then lifts us back up. 

Brennan Manning said, “To live by grace is to acknowledge my whole life story, the light side and the dark. In admitting my shadow side, I learn who I am and what God’s grace means.” (The Ragamuffin Gospel)

Grace enters our lives proportionally to how honest we are with God and with ourselves. We must bring ourselves, our WHOLE selves, to God, the good and the bad, the beautiful and the ugly, and lay it at His feet.

“The Good News means we can stop lying to ourselves. The sweet sound of amazing grace saves us the necessity of self-deception, It keeps us from denying that though Christ was victorious, the battle with lust, greed, and pride still rages within us. …When I go to church I can leave my white hat at home and admit I have failed. God not only loves me as I am, but also knows me as I am. Because of this I don’t need to apply spiritual cosmetics to make myself presentable to Him. I can accept ownership of my poverty and powerlessness and neediness.” (The Ragamuffin Gospel)

“God expects more failure from you than you expect from yourself.” (The Ragamuffin Gospel)

If you feel like you are struggling to feel God’s love, or that you have been left alone to try and sort out the pieces of your broken life alone, I urge you to talk to God. Tell Him how you feel. Be honest with Him and say the things you wish you could say to your friends and family. Too often we feel like He is a distant being, an uninterested dealer of justice alone. Not so. He is here, full of mercy, knocking at our door, waiting for us to open up to Him. His is not a passive or a distant love, it is active, immediate, and accessible. We just need to turn to Him.

Of all the academic subjects in the world, none seems to have the reputation for boredom and pointlessness quite like history (mathematics gives it a run for its money, but you can at least see the importance of maths in building a bridge, or when you have 62 watermelons and you give 13 to Jimmy and you want to know how many watermelons you have left). History, it seems to many, has no good answer to “When are we ever going to use this?” aside from the (in)famous rebuttal “those who fail to learn from the past are doomed to repeat it” (or one of its many variations).

I love history (generally), and I voluntarily read all sorts of things to learn it, but I understand why some people don’t share my enthusiasm. I’ve realized, however, that when someone says, “I hate history” they’re putting some serious limits on the things they don’t hate. Let me explain.

We tend to view history as one of the many subjects available for study, alongside maths, music, engineering, basket-weaving, etc. etc. etc. While this is a useful way to delineate subjects and topics, the reality is that the study of any subject is, in large part, history.

Take politics for example: in order to be an effective politician, you must have a thorough knowledge of what has happened in a nation or region’s past, who its enemies are, what kind of internal conflict has occurred, what laws are already in place, who not to mess with, who you can definitely mess with, and so on (this is generally what is taught in “history” classes).
To be an engineer you learn about Newton, Einstein, Maxwell, and a host of other influential figures, as well as past structures, inventions, and/or developments in the field.
To be a musician you learn and perform historical pieces of music, learn about the various styles, instruments, and influences of different time periods, not to mention the composers and performers of those times.

The examples go on and on with nearly every subject, and even though most subjects aren’t solely history, it’s easy to see why learning the history of a subject is vital for an adequate understanding that subject (If you have any examples of subjects in which you don’t need to learn any history, I’d love to hear them). Learning history doesn’t even stop with professional or academic pursuits; we develop our friendships and relationships in large part by learning (and participating in) the histories of those around us. We can’t even understand ourselves if we don’t understand our own personal history.

We are what we are, we know what we know, and we do what we do because of history. Each moment has been shaped by the events that preceded it; if we don’t understand the past, we don’t understand the present. Without understanding the present, we are unprepared for the future. As Maya Angelou said: “If you don’t know where you’ve come from, you don’t know where you’re going.”

Overall, even though some might hate it and many fail to see the value of learning it, history, in all its forms, is one of the most important subjects for us to learn. Without a knowledge of the past, we really are doomed to repeat it: in engineering, art, and our own lives.

One last thought, as a corollary to what I’ve said so far: though history is vitally important to learn, we mustn’t get caught up in it. We learn history not to dwell on the mistakes of the past or to lament the conditions of the present; we learn history so we can learn from those mistakes and better shape our future. The second part of the quote from Maya Angelou is this: “I have respect for the past, but I’m a person of the moment. I’m here, and I do my best to be completely centered at the place I’m at, then I go forward to the next place.”

We don’t make or fail to make history. The sands of time flow regardless of the actions we take, and history is made whether we like it or not. We only have to decide what our place in it will be.