HUMILITY

Loren Cunningham recently told me this: "Humility is choosing to be known for who you really are. Humility is transparency." Can you imagine the difference it would have made for Ted Haggard if he had chosen transparency for all of these years rather than having a secret that he kept in his heart? Can you imagine how it would change your own life if you lived a transparent life in Christ? The traps I've fallen into could have been so easily avoided. Oh, Lord, please give us hearts that honestly stand before you, recognizing who we are in You, unashamed and full of integrity!

This thought humbled me today. God commands me to rejoice always, pray without ceasing, always be thankful, always be content, to love, to forgive, to do nothing that impugns His character and nature. Yet, when I look into my heart I often find an angry and ungrateful heart, a heart that lacks contentedness, a heart that seeks his own rather than God's desires. I find myself grumbling when I feel slighted by another or when I don't get my expectations met. All the while I quickly forget God's command to rejoice and be thankful.

So, I'm trying to learn to be more transparent. I've found that I've got messages written on my heart that confuse sinful pride with feeling worthy of love because of the saving work of Christ. Please understand that as I try to put these feelings down into words I am afraid much will be lost because it is very difficult to describe with my mouth and mind what is going on in my heart.

Here is what I think I've come to understand. I often sabotage my own "loveableness" because I have this false humility that says I can't be worthy of God's or anyone else's love because if I feel that I am worthy of such love I am being prideful. So, I act in a way to sustain this belief, conducting myself in a way that validates my belief that I should be unworthy of love. This results in me feeling all sorry for myself because I believe no one loves me (or they really don't like me much because of my silliness), and, in desperation, I feel compelled to tell everyone how great I am because I do still need their love and appreciation. This results in people seeing me as being prideful and/or a person who doesn't need others and intensifies my feelings of worthlessness as the distance between me and others grows. Although I feel "glad" that I'm "not being prideful" I also feel miserable that I'm so worthless and that "nobody loves me." This is a vicious closed loop in my heart.

So, I like David, will continue to ask the Lord to find these offensive ways in my heart where I believe lies or partial truths rather than resting wholeheartedly on His perfect truth. Just like the song we all learned as children, "Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so...." "[T]he Father himself loves you because you have loved me and have believed that I came from God." John 16:27. I need to represent more of God and His truth to my heart, meditating thereon and storing His words up in my heart like Mary. And, like David and Solomon, I want to continue to commune with my heart and let God do His amazing work of sanctification in my heart and life.