The Self-Life: by John Eldredge

Psalm 68:16

Why gaze in envy, O rugged mountains, at the mountain where God chooses to reign, where the Lord himself will dwell forever?

When mankind chose against God at the fall, we exalted Self in the place of God. You’ll notice how seriously Jesus takes the matter when he said we must daily die to Self if we would be his followers, if we would be the sons and daughters of God. “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me” (Luke 9:23). We don’t particularly like that part of the Christian invitation; notice the absence of any best-selling book entitled “Die to Yourself Every Day!” It’s the self-life, by the way, that doesn’t like the subject.

Now to be clear, what I mean by “the self-life” is the part of us that during a conversation is waiting for our opportunity to speak, our moment to be asked how we are doing; waiting for our opportunity to tell a story. It's that part of us that finds it difficult to rejoice when others rejoice. It's that part of us that is so easily offended when we feel we have even been slightly wronged. The self-life is the breeding ground for envy. Dorothy Sayers wrote,

It begins by asking, plausibly, “Why should I not enjoy what others enjoy?” and it ends by demanding, “Why should others enjoy what I may not?” Envy is the great leveler, if it cannot level things up, it will level them down;