Humility

Humility is the focus this week in my Lent devotional.  And I have to tell you that in this moment, on the inside, I am stomping my feet, hands on my hips, protesting loudly that "IT'S NOT FAIR!!!"  I don't feel like being humble in the least!

In "Journey to the Cross", Kendal Haug and Will Walker have this to say about the humble person--

"In humility we are becoming less concerned with prestige.

Our wills are breaking and we are not demanding our rights anymore.

On the journey to the cross, fear is losing its grip as we cling to our

identity in Christ.

Pride is being starved because we are letting go of our need to be right

and our desires to be recognized.

We are being liberated from the solitary confinement of self-concern."

Oh really????

Every single one of those statements is a stretch for me and even on a good day.  

Thus far this Lenten season has highlighted the humility of Christ.  I am dumbfounded as I read familiar passages with new eyes.  Jesus was so incredibly empty of Himself.  All the time.  He was completely secure in His relationship with His Father and His God-ordained mission in life.  He was not about demanding His rights and refuting untruths about Himself.  He did not clamor for the limelight but in fact gave it up....all the glory that was rightfully due Him.  He was forever thinking of others and their needs... physical, emotional, and spiritual and consistently putting His needs aside to care for others.  He did not seek approval from others, complain about his lot in life or stomp His feet when He was overlooked and another wasn't.

I expect He was at peace as well.  At peace because He was so committed and purpose driven and wholly in love with me.  This is what was behind all of His actions.  Love.  This heart stopping, unimaginable love

that He has for you and I.  It's what paved His journey to the garden, the cross and the tomb.  Love.  

I sit here in quiet wonder and confess that I just do not have that kind of love.  Some days I don't even

have the desire to love like this.  And even when the desire is there, I fall short of ever

reaching the depths of the love He has for my own soul.  Someone once said, "The cross highlights my badness."  Oh yes it does.  

But the empty tomb, could not contain a resurrection kind of love.  His love defied death, not just so one day heaven would be my home, but so that here and now, I could grapple with things like humility, because a power so much greater than mine, lives and moves within me.

"O give me repentance unto life...

that His Spirit may pervade every fibre of my being..."

--Journey to the Cross

This is the prayer my heart cries out.