Pride
Here I stand, angry. Not just angry…but I've been wronged, and I'm entitled to an apology. I'm owed a gesture that says you were wrong, and I am right. I simmer, and my thoughts take off. Who are you to make me feel this way?
And then The Father speaks: "Daughter, you are PROUD."
Ugh.
Now I'm angry at you both. Can't You see she's wrong, Father? She hurt me…and again, as loudly and clearly as I've ever heard Him speak, "Maybe so, but who are you?" Overwhelmed by His words and stricken with conviction, I'm brought to my knees. Without skipping a beat, He draws from the words He's stored away in my heart: "God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble." -James 4:6
How did I completely misread the unsettledness in my Spirit for the last month…sick with anxiety, overwhelmed by my lack of control, while completely unaware of who I am?
Again, "Daughter, you know nothing of yourself. I knit you together in your mother's womb. I know the places you hide. I know your insecurities, your dark secrets, your greatest fears. These are not unknown to me. Stop trying so hard to keep it together. I need you BROKEN."
My heart races and my mind wanders, "What does this mean? What does it look like to be completely broken, vulnerable, and exposed? I attempt to establish parameters on the term broken. I even go as far as looking up the definition for "break." The term literally means "to become inoperative." So…my way, my control, my flesh has to die. It has to become inoperative. I can feel the deep, life changing importance of this moment. I can feel my Spirit lighten as victory steps forward, and I'm brought to tears in shame. I thought I was justified to be angry. Justified to not forgive. No. I was proud, entitled, insecure, and bound by my own sin.
This has been my month. In my search for answers, I stumbled upon a devotional focused on "The Prodigal Son". A familiar story and one I've heard and read a thousand times…but this time, instead of focus on the son, it was on his older brother:
"Now his older son was in the field, and as he came and drew near to the house, he heard music and dancing. And he said to him, 'Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fattened calf, because he has received him back safe and sound.' But he was angry and refused to go in. His father came out and entreated him, but he answered his father, 'Look, these many years I have served you, and I never disobeyed your command, yet you never gave me a young goat, that I might celebrate with my friends."-Luke 15:25, 27-29
ENTITLEMENT. EXPECTANCY. INSECURITY.
I am the older son.
To quote Andrew J. Bauman in his book Stumbling Toward Wholeness, "We want what is 'right', too often at the cost of mercy and grace. This fierce sense of self-righteousness makes us feel powerful. However, when we are in this realm, we also feel vulnerable, and our core fear is being exposed as 'not good enough after all'. We become prideful in order to cover up our fear of being wrong or 'less than'. When faced with betrayal and deep pain, it is much easier to rage than to enter into grief. It is all too easy to lash out at others to escape the war within."
So begins the journey of brokenness. I'm not sure what it'll look like, and I'm trying not to focus on its boundaries. My tendency is to place God in this box created by me, to contain Him within my comfort zone, but the reality is that His will always prevails and the sooner I put this pride away and start to seek absolute humility, the sooner He can use me for what's He's called me to.
"I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love," -Ephesians 4:1-2
#gpdoneonpurpose
