You have sometimes heard it said of people
that "they have to be handled like eggs"; eggs must be
handled carefully; or you are likely to break them. Some
people are super-sensitive: you have to be very careful what
you do or say, or they will be hurt or offended; you can
never be sure how they are going to take anything. Such
people are much of the time suffering from wounded feelings,
are displeased and offended. It is true that some are of a
highly nervous temperament and naturally feel things more
keenly than others, but it is not this natural nervous
sensitiveness that leads to the results above mentioned, it
is a morbid and unnatural state into which people allow
themselves to enter. The natural feelings may need restraint
and careful cultivation, but these morbid feelings need to
be got rid of.
Sometimes people can bear to hear others
ridiculed or talked about in a gossiping way, or see them
slighted, and think nothing of it or even be amused; but
when they themselves become the target for such things, it
almost kills them, or at least they feel almost killed. What
makes this great difference in their feelings? Why do they
feel for themselves so much more than they do for others?
Trace the feeling back to its origin, and you will find that
their self-love is the thing that has been hurt. If they
loved others as they love themselves, they would feel just
as much hurt by that which was directed againts the other as
by that which was directed at themselves. It is self-love
that makes people easily offended and easily wounded; and
the more self-love they have, the easier they are hurt and
the quickier their resentment is aroused. Self-love begets
vanity; it quivers in keenest anguish at a sneer or a
scornful smile; it is distressed by even a fancied slight.
Self-love throws the nerves of sensation all out to the
surface and makes them hyper-sensitive, and so the person
feels everything keenly. He is constantly smarting under a
sense of injustice. He feels he is constantly being
mistreated.
Oh, this self-love! How many pains it brings!
how many slight it sees! how often it is offended! Reader,
are you a victim of self-love? If you are so sensitive,
always being wounded and offended, self-love is what is the
trouble. If you will get rid of this self-love, you will be
rid of that morbid sensitiveness that makes people have to
be so careful with you.
Self-love makes a person wonder what others
are thinking and saying about him. It makes him suspicious
of others, suspicious that they are saying or thinking
things that would hurt his feelings if known. If two others
talk in his presence and he can not hear what is said, he is
afraid lest the talk is about him or he is hurt because he
is not taken into the confidence of others. If others are
invited to take part in something while he is omitted, he
feels slighted and hurt, and can hardly get over it. I have
often heard people make remarks like this: "We shall have to
invite So-and-so, or he will feel hurt," Self-love is a
tender plant; it is easily injured. We may make all sorts of
excuses for such sensitieveness; but if we will clear away
these excuses and dig down to the root oooof the trouble, we
shall find that God has it labeled "self love."
Another thing that increases sensitiveness is
holding a wrong mental attitude toward others. This attitude
manifest itself in a lack of confidence in the good intent
of others. If we are looking for and expecting slights,
ridicule, and like things, it means we take it for granted
that others are holding a wrong attitude toward us. We do
not really believe that they love us and have kindly
feelings towards us, or that they will be just and kind and
sympathetic in their actions that affects us or relate to
us. Have you not seen children who, when one would hurt
another and say, "Oh, I did not mean to do it!" the other
would retort, "Yes you did; you just did it on purpose"?
There are many older persons who are always ready to say,
"It was just done on purpose; they just meant to hurt my
feelings!" This is childish, but alas, how many professed
Christians hold such an attitude! This is a sure way to
destroy fellowshhip and to take sweetness out of the
association with God's people. It is unjust to our brethren.
It is the foe of unity and spirituality. Were it not for
self-love, we would not think of attributing to others an
attitude different from that which we feel that we ourselves
hold toward them.
This self-love crops out in all relations. It
constantly exalts us and as constantly depreciates our
brethren. God's saints are animated with a spirit of
kindness and brotherly affection for each other, and this
does not manifest itself in wounds and slights, and if we
are looking for such manifestation it is because we do not
believe that they have Christlike feelings towards us. God
wants us to have more confidence in our brethren than to be
looking for them to misuse us.
If we are looking for slights, we shall see
plenty of them--even where none exist. If we are expecting
wounds, we shall receive them even when no one intends to
wound us. Self-love has a great imagination. It can see a
great many evils where none exist. It is like a petulant and
spoiled child. I remember one child of whom it was said, "If
you just crook your finger at him, he will cry." Thinking
that this was an exaggeration, I tried it, and the boy
cried. There are some people six feet tall who are hurt just
that easily. They are truly "lovers of their own selves."
Paul said, "When I became a man, I put away childish
things." It is high time others were doing the samething.
Suppose Christ had been as sensitive as you are, would he
saved the world? If Paul had been like you, would he have
endured the persecution and dangers and tribulations and
misrepresentation that he bore to carry the gospel to world?
He was not not so sensitive. He was not looking for slights.
He was a real, full sized man for God. The secret is that he
loved Christ and others more than he loved himself;
therefore he could endure all things for his brethren's
sake, that they might be saved.
The cure for self-love and the sensitiveness
that comes from it is to turn away your eyes from self to
Jesus Christ, and look upon him until you see how little and
insignificant you and your interest really are. Look upon
him until you see how high above all such narrow pettishness
he was, until you see that his great heart was so
overrunning with love for others that he had no time to
think of himself. Then ask him to revolutionize you and fill
your heart with that same love till your eyes and your
thoughts and your interest are no longer centered upon
yourself, and self no longer fills your horizon, but your
heart goes out to others till it quite draws you away from
yourself. You will find this the cure for your
sensitiveness; and when you are thus cured, you will no
longer be an egg-shell Christian, and people will no longer
have to be afraid of wounding or offending
you.
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