Breaking Your Own Egg! ~Dan Gulley, Smithville, TN Church of Christ~
There’s a story about a woman and her husband on vacation far away from home. The vacation was interrupted by a toothache. The couple looked up a dentist close by and made a visit. “I want a tooth pulled, and I want no anesthetic because I’m in a hurry,” the wife said. “Just extract the tooth as quickly as possible and we’ll be on our way.” The dentist was concerned but also quite impressed and said, “You’re certainly a courageous woman. Which tooth is it?” The woman turned to her husband and said, “Show him your tooth, dear.”
That woman reminds us a lack of concern about others causes great pain our world. A man named Frank Mar is credited with saying, “Every man brings an egg and everyone wants an omelet — but without breaking his own egg.” Mars’ words, liked the woman in the story above, remind us of a fundamental and wide-spread problem affecting human beings — selfishness. Self is the egg the Bible urgently calls us to break again and again. Yet, sadly and tragically, it is the one egg many if not most people stubbornly refuse to break. This ongoing refusal creates many difficult and painful situations in our world.
The Bible reveals a trustworthy recipe for a delicious and delightful spiritual omelet in Philippians 2:2-3 — “be like-minded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind. Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself.” Human relationships thrive and flourish on the qualities the apostle Paul listed here — harmony, mutual love, concern and humility. But these are not the things dominating our world. Instead, loud voices rabidly demand “my rights” and “my choices” and “my liberties.” With a locked-in focus on self-satisfaction and happiness, people do all kind of things that hurt those around them. This lack of harmony and mutual love along with a healthy dose of humility mars marriages, causes families to fight and fracture, divides churches, stirs communities to conflict, and convulses our cities with crime and violence and even causes nations to go to war. Behind practically all these problems are defects in human character — selfishness, conceit, pride, and hatred. Millions of people want a better world without being willing to do the hard work involved in becoming better people themselves. Millions demand an omelet while refusing to break their own egg!
The Gospel of Jesus Christ calls us to break our own egg. Philippians 2:4 adds to the words cited above — “Let each of you look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others.” In reality we can’t improve the world until people improve. I know the Gospel is an old story, and I know it prescribes medicine many people won’t take for improving sinners and turning them in to saints. That being said, it is still a fact that no plan, person, or philosophy known to mankind rivals the Gospel for improving people’s behavior, let alone saving their souls.
Do you want to enjoy an omelet? It is still necessary to break your own egg. Jesus broke His own egg – He denied His own rights and comfort and convenience for our sakes. He was God in the flesh (John 1:14), and totally without sin (2 Corinthians 5:21). Yet, He so completely broke His egg of self, and was so completely sold out to looking out for our interests, that He underwent the hell-like experience of death on a cross. How about you? Do you really want to improve your part of the world? Then the question that has to be answered is, are you willing to break your egg?
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