A Hot Mess on a Mission

Over the past 6 years I have been faced with some of the hardest times of my entire life. Caring for, and then losing my precious father to Alzheimer’s dementia was one trial, but it wasn’t even the hardest. The hardest one is still happening. But let me tell you the secret to my sanity, my full heart, and my gratitude: God. Yahweh. Elohim. Jehovah Jireh. Jehovah Rapha. Both “plain and simple” and “extraordinary and miraculous.” He is the air that resuscitates me. He is the breath that gives me life. And His peace is unequivocal.

Over the past 6 years I have seen God moving in my life in a way I have never seen before. Perhaps because I finally started handing everything over to him, including the last semblance of control I thought I had. Or maybe because I started to realize how undeserving I was of His grace and mercy. I really think this last one was key. We like to espouse that we are a child of the King, with almost a sense of entitlement or arrogance. I don’t think this is how God wanted us to use our adoption status. I think we often forget how undeserving we are, how wicked and broken we are as humans, and how we would NEVER be able to come into the presence of God if it weren’t for our Savior, who stood in our place, both in life and in death. For a long time, I only understood my brokenness superficially…in my head, but not my heart…until God finally took the blinders (of pride) off my eyes, and it broke me.

And yet, in discovering my brokenness, I found my peace….well, HIS peace.

As I write this, I pray that God will touch your heart and open your eyes to any blind spots that you have (just as he continues to open my own eyes to my ongoing blind spots). I feel a bit desperate to get this point across, because I know it is a delicate but crucial subject, and I am not a very delicate person.

So I’m going to tell you my own story, of how God slowly but surely plucked the pride out of my heart, little by little. I’m not saying that I no longer struggle with pride. It’s still a battle I fight. But now I recognize it, and face it head on with scripture. Pride, my dear friends, is something that we know is unholy, but we rarely truly examine ourselves closely enough to root it out. Perhaps because we are too prideful to admit that we have pride in our hearts.

Do you ever feel like you deserve a better life that what you have? A bigger house, a more loving spouse, more appreciative children, a better job….the list goes on. That’s pride.

When we get frustrated with others or think that we shouldn’t have to clean up after other people, that is pride, my friend. Do you ever get mad at people for pulling out in front of you on the road, and think that they should drive how YOU think they should? Pride. Can you see how pride can creep into our attitudes without us even realizing it?

Now, on with my experience. Within the last few years, I have faced no less than 6 serious, and somewhat traumatizing situations where my pride could have easily taken over. I had what the world would call “every right” to feel the way I did…(self)righteous in my own eyes… People who I could justifiably refer to as “enemies” were telling lies that were damaging to my relationships with others and harming my integrity. My obvious desperation and distraught-ness just made me seem overly dramatic. Some of the people being lied to either didn’t want to hear my side or didn’t want to believe my side over the other person’s side. These lies were not about petty or trivial events, either. They actually triggered a PTSD response that I hadn’t felt in decades. I’m not saying that I am an innocent victim in all of these situations. I have a long history of bad choices that had led up to these conflicts. I should have never put myself in the positions that I put myself in over the past 3 decades. But I did, and there I was.

And so I began to pray. I begged God to guide me, to give me scripture, to show me what I am supposed to do. I KNEW scripture held the answer. I felt completely lost. But to be honest, at first I was looking for scripture that would vindicate me, that would feed my self righteousness, and somehow tell me that those people were evil and bound for the lake of fire. But that’s not what happened. God began to convict me…I wrestled with what my flesh “felt” was right and what scripture said. It would sound nice if I could say that I fought my pride with scripture, but a more accurate statement would be that scripture fought me to give up my pride.

As I opened my Bible, it fell open to Romans 12, and this is what God showed me.

Romans 12:14–21

14. Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. 15. Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. 16. Live in harmony with one another. Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly. Never be wise in your own sight. 17. Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. 18. If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. 19. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” 20. To the contrary, “if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.” 21.Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. (ESV)

And so, as hard as it was, I began to pray for those who were behaving like my enemy. I knew of some of the struggles they had, and I began to pray for healing and peace for them. This was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. It literally hurt. It felt so unfair. (There’s that pride again.) I prayed for those who were lying, and those who believed the lies. I prayed for the people who hated me, and I pray for those who still do. I pray for those who cling to their own self-righteousness, and those who refuse to repent and refuse to forgive. Yes, I have asked for forgiveness where I have needed to. And I have forgiven those who have never asked for it. At this point, none of these people have apologized or have even admitted to any wrongdoing. This is how I know that pride is far too common in our culture. All but one of these people confess Christ, yet none of them have acted with humility.

And this is why I am desperate to share this message. Pride is sneaky, and it is so destructive. The only way to overcome it is with humility, and the only way we can be humbled is by knowing how undeserving we are of God’s forgiveness, yet he gives it freely to those who love him and confess. If the almighty God can forgive a lowly sinner like me, who am I to not extend forgiveness to a fellow broken sinner. I am certainly not better that God! I am no better (or worse) than those who have hurt me. We are all just trying to do our best, on our journey to sanctification.

“For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly”.  Romans 5:6

 “The LORD detests all the proud of heart. Be sure of this: They will not go unpunished”  Proverbs 16:5

“God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble”  James 4:6

Five years ago I would have said that I was right with God, and didn’t have a problem with pride, because, for lack of a better explanation, I had low self-esteem. How could I have pride, yet think so lowly of myself? But I was wrong. There’s a difference between humility and self-loathing. Self loathing, just like pride, is not of God. But humility is a fruit of the Spirit. Why? Because you cannot attain humility without the Holy Spirit working within you. Self loathing, on the other hand, is a work of the enemy. And at this point in the conversation, I feel like we have come full circle, because those people who behaved as “enemies” that I spoke of earlier, were directly tied to my experience of self-loathing. Isn’t that interesting….. And this is why scripture tells us that our fight is not with flesh and blood, but with powers and principalities in heavenly places. Those people who cause tribulation in our lives are not our problem. Satan is. And what others may mean for our harm, God will use for our good.

“Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.” Romans 5:3-5

So what does all this have to do with have to do with unbearable hardships? How is this supposed to help you feel better? Well, if you want the kind of peace that only God can provide, the kind of peace that comes in the middle of chaos and tribulation, the kind of peace that baffles the people around you and make them ask, “How can you be so calm at a time like this?”…. THAT peace only comes when you surrender it all, die to yourself, pick up your cross, and humbly follow Jesus. Yeshua.