Humility Happens

Hello Readers,

This week I had the great experience of being humbled frequently including being late on this post. I don’t know if it’s about me working so much on my books or if it’s about something more or less valuable. Knowing me it’s probably very anticlimactic, but I was frustrated from the truck not working to go help my sister with transportation of a trailer. The spark plug replacement that inspired my frustration with HEMI engines had to be taken to another mechanic, which they were all too happy to pay more than I received for the job to have a wire moved because of my own error. Really it’s just sad and useless, because I was hoping to have support by asking for help. After asking for said help they left my to my own devices. I thought hopefully the LORD would reward my humility and bless despite my own lack of knowledge. Sometimes he does that, but in this case he did not. To add insult to injury I had most things go awry this week because of my own stupidity. Remeber that Intelligence Quotient means nothing, because you can borrow brains. That being said, it was used to at least prepare me for the evening service, which helped me to at least not think as low of myself as I tend to do out of pride. I realized how arrogant I have been assuming that I must be worse than everyone else. I do believe there are definitely those who have made better decisions in life than I have, but at least it wasn’t by any particularly sinful choices that I am where I am. I believed that by trusting God that those around me would also never hurt me, but boy was that dumb. People hurt each other all the time, but God is in control of the circumstances of my life. I don’t like feeling like I can’t control things, especially when my flesh tells me that I should have protected myself better. It’s too easy to blame myself and take ownership of all my problems as if I could have done something different to change other people from doing what they want to do. I have said before that I am a highly responsible person if something goes wrong at all, I am responsible… That’s called taking overly extreme ownership, but it’s my proclivity. The hardest truth is that it’s just another form of pride to punish yourself and it’s just as wrong as the person who thinks the world revolves around them… a.k.a. soprano’s. In case you haven’t heard the joke, “How does a soprano screw in a lightbulb? She holds the bulb to the mount and the world revolves around her.” The good part of that joke is it only takes 1 as opposed to all the other parts of a choir, but I digress. Try to remember that you aren’t the worlds fixer, changer, or hero. You aren’t going to change the world, which is why we shouldn’t try, but we should be different from the world. The purpose of Christians is to be salt and light in this world for others to taste and see that the LORD is good. He doesn’t fix all of our problems, but lets us go through things for our benefit. Knowing God and who he is allows us to trust that he is in control, but it’s all too easy to be selfish and compare ourselves to others around us. One particular quote hit home, which was “Comparing ourselves with others only results in two things, pride or covetousness.” It’s when I look at other people’s lives and want the best for them that I get overly focused on how much I messed up my life, and that helps noone. Being there for people can be a problem if you aren’t first thankful. It is hard sometimes to be thankful for even the hard things that come into your life, but that’s what faith is for.