Humilty

A lot of people, including myself, can have a misunderstanding about the true definition of humility. I always thought being humble meant thinking less of yourself in the name of love or not letting success get to your head. I hear all the time about how humility is such a great characteristic to have because many people won't admit their weaknesses. This can be an easy trap to fall in, especially for a new Christian like myself. All jokes aside, my relationship with Christ has been the longest relationship I have ever been in mainly because I actually have a desire to keep going. Giving Him my heart and seeking His face through the Word and prayer gave me a sense of self-confidence and happiness because I felt my life was finally getting on the right track. I thought, 'Now I'm ready to go out in to the world, let my light shine and bring people to Jesus Christ.' Having these thoughts is a good thing and is even something Paul encouraged. But the deceitful trap I fell in was a trap that I hadn't noticed until I was too far in. Whenever I would be around people unaware of God's love I would treat them with love in my mind, but in my heart I was condemning and judging them because they couldn't see the amount of damage they were doing to their eternal salvation. For a while this became a habit. Deep down I knew something was wrong about my behavior but I couldn't quite put my finger on the sin I was committing. There's a particular verse that stood out to me once I started searching for answers. In Jeremiah 17:9 it says,

  "The human heart is the most deceitful of all things, and desperately wicked. Who really knows how bad it is?"

This caught my attention because no matter how much I think I know about Christ to go out and try to save or influence others, my own heart is something that I don't even know. Furthermore I went out and mentally judged everyone who used swear words, drank too much or had a bad temper.I was so bent on being an influence that I completely forgot (or failed to) humble myself. It's crazy how someone can be so preoccupied with doing the right thing the right way that we lose total focus and our intentions are not of God's. This was an incredibly humbling experience for me. It was silly of me to think that after 3 months of reading the Bible each day, praying and being joyful that I was suddenly the poster child for Christianity. God certainly had to give me a friendly reminder. So after learning that I couldn't possibly know all the depths of my heart, I came across another scripture that is very important for me to remember. In Romans 12:3 Paul writes,

"Because of the privilege and authority God has given me, I give each of you this warning: Don't think you are better than you really are. Be honest in your evaluations of yourselves, measuring yourself by the faith God has given us."

First, I love how Paul says this is a privilege to have anything from God, especially something like His authority. Secondly, this is something he warns people like me about. Somewhere in the mix I forgot that I too smoked, drank, had a terrible attitude and a potty mouth (among other things). Reading this reminded me that all I have and know is because of God's grace. And if He gives me the integrity to honestly evaluate who I am, then I should use this privilege the way I know He wants me to. Last Sunday my Pastor said he thought it was funny how those who have been saved by Jesus love to give testimonies about who they used to be and what they used to do before being saved all while forgetting to mention the part where Jesus is still saving and changing them. In other words, just because you've been awakened to the calling of the Holy Spirit does not mean that that is all there is to it. Following Jesus is a growth kind of process and a great learning experience where there is always room for change and improvement and takes a lifetime to achieve. Now that God has shown me how I wrong I am, I have started taking smaller steps in how I look at myself and others. Furthermore in this journey of becoming more humble, I am realizing that this is only the beginning.

Song of the Post: Deluge - Let's Worship

(This post is only one half of the definition of humility that has been made known to me by God. My next entry will deal with the second half.)

[K]

My Responsibilty

Growing up as the daughter of a pastor, I became acquainted with the church routine. Sundays were always about getting to church early, staying late after, eating Sunday dinner, napping and then going right back for the evening service. As a young girl I don't think I had a problem with going to church; I even viewed it as something positive. But around the time I was about 12 or 13 years old, I began drifting away from what I had known my whole life and started taking in other people's opinion about the church and God. Like most kids in my position, I started to see church differently and would often criticize God  because of the less than Christian behavior I witnessed by some of the folks that were apart of the congregation. After I moved back to the states and became permanently enrolled in public school, I instantly recognized the lack of order in a lot of the kids I encountered. Looking back now, I couldn't have been in a more dangerous place at such a young age. By the time I got to college, I had completely dismissed God altogether and in my ignorance, came up with a baseless fact that the church was a fraud because the people claiming to be the church were also frauds. I know now that hanging around people who didn't obey God yet had their own ideas about who He was, flipped the good-girl switch in me. Even the bible says bad company corrupts good judgement. Anyway, for most of my college career my mom would hound me with the same question every week, "Did you go to church?" Of course she knew I hadn't and she'd make it known to me how disappointed she was. I would often get offended that she would ask me such a question having full knowledge already that I didn't want to follow in their footsteps.

Fast forward to present day, I am able to see so many signs of insecurities within myself that allowed me to stay in Satan's grip for so long. I realize now that the reason I became so defensive towards my mother about not attending church was because I knew I needed to be there and I knew God wanted me to be there. Furthermore, like a lot of unbelievers whose way of living comes into question, I saw this as a personal attack on who I believed myself to be and I pushed myself further from God. Now that I think about it, it wasn't my parents or any questionable Christians that finally deterred me from Jesus, it was myself! I could have chosen to be open-minded about Jesus' transforming processes on many people's lives. I could have chosen to explore God myself. I could have chosen to look to Jesus for guidance and not the "saints." But I didn't and in my stubbornness, I felt I was in the right for not choosing to do any of those things because I blamed the churchgoers and God for my problems. But back to 2012...

Now whenever I'm at church and I'm singing to God and reaffirming my relationship with Him, it is also the congregation that makes my soul happy. It was and still is such an amazing feeling to be around people who truly love Jesus and are making an effort to stay on course with His teachings. It's at these services that I realize the importance of the church not just in the world, but in the life of a believer as well. I'm shocked at how much time I wasted hiding from God and blaming my lack of spirituality on the church. Now I know that it isn't in my best interest to view God's people (no matter how righteous) as a playbook of how to live the way Jesus wants me to. That's not to say that I can't trust them or even learn from their actions, but what I am saying  is that the mistake of man is not the mistake of God. God makes no mistakes. And if a believer does fall short, whether they be a bishop or a janitor, it is because they have temporarily disconnected themselves from the counsel of Jesus. In other words, the lady who shouted profanity at a crowd of students at my private Christian school didn't do so because God had left her or because He isn't real, but because she had a moment of weakness. Furthermore, the weight of the world and all of its problems cannot be directly traced to God's absence or His "weakness" in not avenging the righteous or innocent, but can only be linked to our weaknesses and our apparent need for dependence on Him that many in this world have not yet come to realize. Besides, I believe that it takes a God like mine, although omnipresent and omnipotent and omniscient, to practice His own teachings by staying honest and faithful in His own promises by granting patience to all people in the hopes that they will turn to Him also.That's the kind of God I admire!

Song Of the Post: Holly Starr - Take Me As I Am

[K]