It’s so much easier to notice when someone else plays the martyr than to see it in yourself.  Any of us who work hard at our job, or at parenting, or volunteering, or ministry can come to a place where it feels like no one else is doing as much as me.  No one really appreciates how much I’ve put into this.  I can’t step away because everything will fail without me.  Maybe I should step away so that everyone will see that they can’t do it without me.

When this pattern of thinking becomes your way of life, it’s called having a martyr complex (Great article on it here at Loner Wolf).  Jesus said that to follow him, you have to deny yourself and take up your cross.  The difference between that and a martyr complex is that you use self-denial as a twisted form of self-promotion, and ultimately self-righteousness.  Instead of taking up your cross, you take  Christ’s cross as if salvation were up to you and not him.  I guess the Good News is that even when we do that, Christ refuses to let us take his place on the cross.  That’s both our great judgment and our great salvation.

When life gets busy and the list of what we have to do gets longer and longer, the martyr complex is so easy to slip into.  I am thankful to have a few good friends who I deeply trust that are bold enough to ask me, “Let’s step back and look at whether this is a real problem, or are you just making it one.”