breathing freely

There is freedom in humility. When there is no point in trying to impress anyone, for the lacking in self is most evident, then humility pops up its head and says now live like He made you to live. Ahhh, freedom!

Of course, it's the road traveled to reach that place of humility that's difficult for the proud, like me! A person can become focused on living so as not to let others down instead of living to glorify Him. Years of this can go by without seeing the mistake, after all if you're doing what is good and right who's going to complain. But when the will gets tired and starts to question the motives and the point of it all, then true colors show and sometimes they're not very appealing. If His seed is planted in the heart, then it will show itself through the struggle with self, but misery comes during that tug of war. The kind of misery that should come, the kind that detours from what would hurt us.

After the misery, comes the whining that no one likes to hear so I'm careful not to share it except in the writing sometimes! Whining because I haven't had MY way, after all haven't I "come a long way, baby", I've been told that I'm "worth it", and I've been around long enough now to know that I "have to love myself before I can love anyone else". Messages from this chaotic world infiltrate even minds that are set apart for Him and although I have never agreed with the messages, those ideas can be found even in my own whining to Him.

When finding myself rolled up in the fetal position spiritually, it's easy to see the small person that I am and be amazed because in spite of my smallness and my lacking, I know He is still there. He shows Himself in ways that amaze me, ways that could never be spoken with words, but He is obvious with His care for me and mine. I feel His eyes on me like they must have been on Peter that night so long ago when his own determination saw its end as he protected what was most dear to him, his plans for his life. What shame must have been felt as Those eyes caught his own in the moment when Peter denied that very One who had given him everything good. Peter could not have gotten lower than that and that was right where he needed to be, in the lowest place, so as Christ's prayers for him were heard, in the agony of Peter's awareness of his lowliness, he must have been newly outfitted in humility. For how could he glory in himself now, as was likely his nature before. He had to know how feeble he was and after Christ restored him, he had to know how great was his God. Suddenly humility must have popped up its head and said now live like He made you to live.

Just checking my own motives in the living lately.

Proverbs 22:4--"By humility and the fear of the LORD are riches, and honor, and life."