At the pier of humility

I feel like God has been dealing with me regarding a number of things, and dare I say that the process has (in my head) morphed into an Emmy worthy discovery series — The chronicles of self.

I’ll get around to spotlighting all the crusty thorns in future posts, but for today I will focus on one. Pride.

The Oxford dictionary defines pride as “the quality of having an excessively high opinion of oneself or one’s importance”.

I read this definition over and over, and even read it out loud a few times to encourage some sort of ‘ah ah’ moment, but nope! I could not relate. It didn’t ring true to me, and despite my best efforts, I did not connect to it at all. I have never considered myself prideful. But evidently the good Lord is not in agreement.

I couldn’t even write this post in one sitting because I struggled with connecting the dots. To me, the equation was rather simple: Pride + Michelle = gone with the wind ridiculous. My friends or those close enough to me may have scored me a 100 for this answer, but I couldn’t shake off this feeling that my score would have been on the much lower side with God.

I would like to believe that my friends know me. Heck I would like to believe that I know myself, as in the whole picture. But sometimes I shock myself with just how little of myself I know, circling around the edges of the same half of the pie. God however sees me. I cannot hide from him, not even my thoughts. I can show a variation of myself to folks and be accepted for what is shown, but God? Yea I can’t con him.

Pride huh. Interesting. 

God must be drilling you in at this particular time for a reason. So, where do I begin with deconstructing you? Where do I begin with understanding where you and I intersect? Which walls do I have to scale to move past the edge, and which windows or doors do I have to break into to enter my innermost self. How do I bleach out your stain from my life?

End of self is the beginning of grace, just one of the gold blocks dropped by Pastor Jeremy Foster in his sermon Alignment Determines Assignment. You see, in the last little while I have been trying to figure me out, and the question that keeps ringing in my ear and one that has made a habit out of keeping me up at night is what is my purpose? Then I think, am I even doing what I am meant to be doing right now to get to where I want to be? And then I think good God what am I even meant to be doing? What am I missing? What am I not seeing? Am I even in alignment with God’s will? Am I doing enough? Then…, panic sets in, my heart starts beating faster than my brain can think, and for a moment it feels like I am out of air, like the walls are closing in on me. Scary.

So to prevent more of such occurrences, I hit an imaginary override button to stop myself from thinking. It never works. Pride. To see myself so highly to the point of believing I can do bad all by myself. To think that it is in my Rolodex of personal rights to pick and choose when I need God. To half curtsey to the King of Kings, with a heart not fully bowed in surrender. To hide from God when he calls for me. To foolishly battle for control with the one who created me.

He guides the humble in what is right and teaches them his ways |Proverbs 25:9 (NIV)|

The Almighty God does His best work with yielding clay, one that willingly molds and shapes into what the potter has purposed it to be. A unique masterpiece. One of its kind. The pressure from the pressing, rolling and twisting is 50 shades of uncomfortable (why I hid for so long), but as I am beginning to see, the process flushes out purpose.

A thorn in my flesh, a reminder that only God sees the whole pie, from beginning to end.

A thorn in my flesh, a reminder to wave my white flag and humbly surrender to, and give God his rightful place in my life.

A thorn in my flesh, a reminder that I cannot do bad all by myself.

A thorn in my flesh, a reminder. I need God.

Colour me humble. #sohelpmeGod #grace

Happy MonYAY! 💕

xoxo