Grand Haven

Scraping off the Grime

So lately I have been praying for humility.  I can feel it build a huge wall inside of me when it comes to dealing with the relationships in my life. It's not that I think I'm better than everyone else, its the fact that my own priorities and feelings always come first in my life. Paul writes "put yourself aside, and help others to the top," to the Philippines. Why is this so hard for people in our society to embrace? It makes me sad, that our own egos and priorities are what is preventing us from building the type of relationships that Christ wants us to have. 

I have been considering the relationships I have in my life and I think a major barrier is my own personal ego, my unwillingness to let my own priorities sink to the bottom of my list. I've been praying for God to break me, to strip me of my pride so that I can truly live the servant life, and take a step toward the type of relationships that Christ wants me to have. I'm not saying its been easy; one of the hardest things to do is to swallow your pride and not feel sorry for yourself, but even though its hard and it hurts, I am trying to praise Him for the ways in which he is humbling me and putting me down so that I can clear my heart completely out to "help other to the top".

On the Outside

So I was journal-ing this morning and I realized that I was writing as if someone were going to read it. Its my journal, not something that anyone ever reads besides myself, and here I am writing while in the back of my mind I am worrying about how it is going to sound to someone else. Now I am not saying that was catering to someone else while I was writing my journal, but I had this small sense as if someone were reading it, and then subconsciously I think I was thinking about what they would think about me afterward.

So, I came to the conclusion that I accidentally live my life around my image most of the time. Its not something I actively think about but in the back of my head I am living as if I were being looked at or judged.

I think that a lot of our culture today is to blame for this, and that I am not alone in the imaged-based life. Everything in our culture, from facebook, to where we shop, to this very blog, is based around a public display of one's self, and if you don't portray yourself in a certain light then people may get the wrong idea of who you are on the inside.

This makes me feel so sad, and ashamed of myself to be honest, because I don't want to live that life. Especially when it comes to my faith. I don't want my lived out faith to become a part of my image. I don't want to strive to be like Jesus just so that my christian image with be parallel with my christian actions. I want to strive to be like Jesus because of the personal relationship I have with him, and I want that love of Christ to flow out of me as a result of the love he shows me, not because I feel obligated to in order to keep up my reputation.

Hope this makes some sense.