The Power of Other-Orientation

     I love to watch God heal: bodies, hearts, emotions, spirits, and perhaps especially, relationships. And I am not alone in my joy in seeing relationships healed. In writing his joy-filled letter to the network of house churches we know as "the Church at Philippi," the Apostle Paul says, "Make my joy complete by being in completely healthy relationship with one another." (Philippians 2:1-4 summarized and paraphrased.). 

     In encouraging the Philippian saints to complete his joy, Paul gives a powerful other-oriented prescription as to how these healthy relationships are achieved. All that follows "make my joy complete" is one big string of supporting participles describing how they can fulfill his joy: "being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose, doing nothing from selfish ambition or empty conceit, humbly considering others as more important than yourselves, not looking out only for one's own interests but also the interests of others." (Tom's translation). And if there's one phrase that, in my opinion, describes all of these, it's "other-orientation."

     There is tremendous healing power in other-orientation, even beyond the obvious realm of relationships. I have noticed many times over the years the power of turning someone from the self-focus that often accompanies great pain to at least a little focus beyond him/herself. Even small movements towards others can bring, if not total healing (physical, emotional, relational), a noticeable reduction in pain and an open door to more healing. Indeed, I cannot recount the number of times I saw breakthrough for someone who decided to turn away from self to serve others in some small way or the number of marriages that started the healing process when at least one partner made a decision to consider his/her spouse "as more important than him/herself."

     Sometimes this truth is quite obvious: allowing God to remove bitterness and its connection to physical healing is well known. And the shift towards serving the other, forgiving the other is also clearly a key to healing relationships. But is it possible? Absolutely! Consider the following.

     First, before Paul gives the admonition about fulfilling his joy, he reminds his hearers of what we all have been given through Jesus Christ. Verse one literally reads, "Since you have encouragement from being united with Christ, since you have comfort from His love, since you have tenderness and compassion from Him..." (Tom's paraphrase). Paul's appeal is given to those who were, through their relationship with Jesus, experiencing an ongoing flood of encouragement, comfort, tenderness and compassion. It is in light of their corporate and individual experience of the wonder of all this that Paul says, "make my joy complete by ...." So we are not asked to make a choice to consider others better than ourselves, to become other-oriented, in a vacuum. Rather it's in the infinite context of and continuing experience of God's love and power and all that means (the healing of our own wounds and changing of our "wounded" thinking) that God says to us, "Turn from self to the other"! 

      Second, Paul doesn't suggest that in considering another better than self we are to accept that as reality: that they really are better than we are, more important than we are. That's where far too many people live already: feeling inferior to others, and it's totally wrong and counter-productive in terms of becoming other-oriented. Neither does Paul suggest that we "pretend" in some way that the other person is more important. No, what Paul encourages us to do is to make a conscious decision to make the other person: their heart, their interests, etc., more important than our own. It's a solid decision, made in the heart, that reveals itself in how we think and act.   

·           Third, Paul elaborates on what "considering others better than ourselves" looks like in verse 4: "looking not only to your interests but to the interests of others." Wow, I wonder what it would look like if our American culture, our church culture, really put this one into practice in a conscious and continuing way. What healing, what relational wholeness would follow, eh? 

     Finally, Paul points to Jesus (who lives in each of us by His Spirit) as our example for the power of other-orientation in verses 5-11. I don't have time today to fully elaborate on this remarkable passage, but please notice the following: God's Son made a conscious and settled decision to lay aside the "God part" of Himself to serve us, but He did this in the context of His knowledge of and trust in His Father and His Father's love for Him. It is, I think, the context of Father's love and the very deliberate decision to lay self aside that grew out of it that we need most to understand if we are to release in our own lives the power of other-orientation. Just a thought.

Living loved in order to live increasingly other-oriented.

Tom, one of Abba's dearly loved little children