Unselfish Unselfishness

I was such a good kid. Well not really. I always wanted to be a good kid. In fact, I remember spending a whole evening musing about unselfishness. I guess my brother and I had been given a talk about unselfishness and arguing and I remember at least thinking to myself and possibly asking mum: "What if Tom and I became so unselfish that we both wanted the other one to go through the gate first and we started arguing about it?" Cute right! (I was dead serious too.) But sad to say, I'm not sure we've come to that point or maybe it's just that we don't care if the other person goes first or we do anymore.
Anyway, I'm not here to tell you how cute I was when I was little (but if you're asking...hehe). There's another memory I have to do with unselfishness in my past that some might find cute but it's really kind of sad. I remember at mealtimes, sometimes you know, there's not quite enough food to go around. I mean, it's not as bad as it sounds. It's not like there's no food for tea but sometimes what Mum makes is just way too good and there's not enough for everyone to have a decent feed. You know what I'm talking about. Well I don't know about in your family but in ours, whenever that would happen, Dad would go into the kitchen and get something that was always way yummier then what we were given. (Well that's what we thought anyway.) I'd look at that treat (let's say it was potato chips) and drool over it but I soon discovered a strategy. Dad loves to reward good behaviour. I mean that's a great parenting technique I'm sure but I was sneaky and loved to try to use this to my advantage. Good, kind, unselfish

Big Sister Me would sweetly give away my portion of tea to one of the many 'starving' siblings that were drooling just as much as I was. Of course, what was 'supposed' to happen was that Dad would notice my unselfish self-sacrifice and reward me with...well, some of those potato chips would do. Once or twice this worked but unfortunately most of the time I found myself with "That was nice." As a reward and an empty stomach as a bonus. They caught on.

Poor me.

In some ways, this can illustrate the Christian Life. How many times have we gone about the form or religion, looking forward to heaven. Heaven seems to be the Christian's aim but should it be? Heaven is the perfect reward for perfect obedience, but is it the main thing that we should be looking forward to? Could it be that we 'sacrifice'* for gain? Could it be that in fixing our eyes on the material gain for the christian pilgrimage, we loose sight of the One that has made all this possible? Could it be that we display selfish unselfishness?
I was challenged by a song that I've been listening to lately. It presented a totally new thought to me. It's

called The Strangest Dream and it tells of a dream where Pilgrim arrives at heaven's gates. After inviting Pilgrim in, the angel asks the strangest question: "What if Jesus wasn't here? What if He were still out on a cross somewhere? What would you say? What would you do? Would you go in and wait for Him in heaven or is Jesus heaven to you?" It goes on to present the challenge of what about heaven we are looking forward to. Think about it. Are we longing for special things for us or the honour of our Lord?

What am I looking forward to? Am I traveling this pathway for the glory of heaven? Or is Jesus heaven enough for me?