I have been thinking lately about how amazingly easy it is to mess up your life.

I was actually reading through a memoir of the son of a godly missionary, and the truth is the memoir was so sad. Distortions, slander, gossip, etc. I had to put it down, hopefully not to pick it up again. It is pretty obvious he had truly godly parents and yet from my perspective he’s turned out to be a fairly bitter man.

I mean, even for an unbeliever…to write a memoir in which you tear apart your parents in order to make a profit, I’ve got to believe even most unbelievers would think of that as pretty low.

But anyway, I am reading this memoir and I am just struck by the fact that you don’t need terrible parents to screw up your life. You can be raised in the best home, with parents that love you, all that and still really, in a big way mess up your life.

You know what it takes? The single most important factor to royally messing up your life?

Focusing on your self.

You name the way people mess up their lives and you trace it back to its root and you’ll find a self-focus there for sure. I can pretty much guarantee it.

Yet the crazy thing is we live in a society that actually promotes the focus on self as the way to true happiness. Satan must truly hate us. He’s packaged this incredibly deceptive and destructive lie and he’s selling it everywhere you look and people are buying it hook, line and sinker.

Even people within the church.