Through The Bible in a Year - April 13, 2026

“You’ll never find another like me. I’m the only one of me. Baby, that’s the fun of me.” – lyrics of Taylor Swift from the song“Me”

Let those words echo in your heart, as we consider the third liethat David Brooks, New York Times columnist and former atheist, says dominates our culture. This is the lie that contends, “I can make myself happy without consideration of others. As long as I have enough money, sex, and power, I’ll be happy—regardless what others think or the impact of my happiness upon them.”

King Solomon’s son Rehoboam believed that lie. He levied more taxes than his father (for money). He married more women that his father who had 700 wives and 300 concubines (for sex). He exercised more control over people through forced labor than his father did (for power).

He sounds strangely like former basketball great, Wilt Chamberlain, who got rich scoring more points than any basketball player in history, and later made news by claiming he’d slept with over a thousand women. So, he had money, sex, and power over others – and he told us, all to prove to us and to himself, “I’m the man I think I am.” Sadly he did not seem to realize the claim that he needed to find someone to make him happy more than a thousand times displayed a life of desperation more than a life of fulfillment.

He’s not alone. Taylor Swift’s song “Me,” whose lyrics insist on glorifying oneself above everything else is ultimately about embracing yourself. And there is no greater aloneness than when all you have to embrace is yourself.

Contrast these celebrity pursuits of self-fulfillment with recent research from the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia: “Very religious couples enjoy higher quality relationships and more sexual satisfaction than less religious couples.” Why? Shared faith translates into living for another, forgiving one another, and securing relationships that are the source of true satisfaction. Prioritizing relationships, as Jesus did when he gave himself for us, buffers life’s stresses and difficulties by providing the security and joy couples experienceand express through love that is selfless, transcendent, and eternal.

God’s design works. Selfishness doesn’t. Trying to find happiness by making yourself the center of your universe will leave you hugging you alone.

Respond: Though it may seem hard to do, ask yourself where you may betrying to make yourself happy at someone else’s expense? What relationship are you sacrificing for your personal pleasure or advancement? What commitment are you breaking because you think the result will satisfy you? Today, consider how it pleased our Lord to give himself for you. He who made the universemade himself nothing so that you could be at the center of his heart. In his embrace we don’t need the selfish glory or gain that once drove us – and drove others from us. Instead, we find ourselves so secure in his arms that our arms reach out to those who need him and who need us.

Prayer: Lord, sometimes I can’t seem to help but believe the lie that I can make myself happy with enough money, pleasure, or power. Help me see that such priorities lead to desperation and loneliness. Forgive my selfish pursuits of happiness that have hurt others. Teach me that the joy Jesus wants for me comes through such confidence in his grace that I can live with theselfless fidelity, forgiveness, and care that brings others close to me – and to Him. In Jesus’ name, Amen.