As someone who by default spends about 13 hours of the day around toddlers, I have a first row seat to human nature in its earliest forms of development. We must be taught how to do nearly everything, from putting on shoes to pulling up pants. But do you know what we never need to be taught? How to look out for our own best interest. Selfishness comes naturally.

As adults, we are little different unless we have trained ourselves to be so. The power of Pentecost lies in the release of God’s spirit like wildfire over His people. But the Spirit is squandered when God’s people live fragmented within self-referential worlds. We are small players in His bigger story. Selfishness limits the ability of what the Spirit wants to do in and through our lives.

In order to see and experience a greater outpouring of the Spirit, we must be looking for it, anticipating it, expecting it. This implicates a selfless posture of the heart and mind. Outward facing focus is how we receive the Spirit’s invite. It is an invitation that beckons an even greater extension away from self to administer to a world bleeding in need of the band-aids we are called to be. The Spirit flows most through those who are concerned about themselves the least.

Commit to doing one selfless act today out of love. Make the phone call. Bring the meal. Bake the cookies. Offer the first apology.