In recent days, as I have blogged already, I have been going through the rather painful process of being humbled before and by God. I thoroughly recommend it if you want to shed pounds just through your tears alone.

This week my humbling took on new heights – or should I say, for the sake of accuracy, depths? I found myself in a completely uncomfortable and unfamiliar position and felt the littleness of who I am in full force. I questioned all sorts of things from ‘Can I really mentor people?’ to ‘Who would want to read my writing anyway…?’ A situation from where we used to live came into my world up here, overtook me for a few days and then bit me. Hard. It hurt.

Then I tried to get out of doing something just because I was struggling but hadn’t actually sought God on it. When I did, to check He was happy with my decision, God told me I was wrong so I had to backtrack and apologise… and probably offended somebody into the bargain… JOY.

Then, to top it off, I had (due to the bizarreness of our diary) about 10 v late nights on the trot and felt sick with tiredness and spiritual fatigue. Consider it PURE JOY.

I took all this mixed up emotion to Father and asked a pal at church to pray for me. (Well, actually I just sort of fell on her during worship – there wasn’t much asking going on.) She, wisely, pinpointed something that God is doing in me… getting me back to the basics of WHO ARE YOU EMS?

A lot of my current issues have been about not being listened to, not feeling respected or important. Boil it down – using a very high heat – and you have a sauce made almost entirely of the bitter herb: pride. I honestly thought I’d got rid of it all. But I SO had not. (In fact, show me someone who is not proud in one area of their lives… and I will show you Jesus….)

So there you go. I’ve come clean… or more accurately… dirty. (There is just no point in me writing a blog about truth if I am not going to let that spill into my personal life sometimes, now is there?)

John Barnett says: ‘Pride is the sin of competing with God…it makes you self-reliant, self-absorbed, self-deceived, self-confident, self-conscious, self-sufficient, self-satisfied, self-focused, self-centred and self-driven.”

I think mine has made me self-pitying too. Not to mention self-ish.
God resists the proud.
I don’t want any amount of that resistance coming my way. Do you?
So, in my continuing journey towards proper humility (not the false kind that looks like humility but actually takes pride in LOOKING humble) I offer you this little gem:
I am a sinner. I offend God.

But I am loved, astoundingly, wonderfully and marvellously by Him too.

Perhaps you too need to examine your heart and allow God to help you to see if there is any offensive way in you? Like I said. Its good for cleansing purposes. Great for the soul – if a tad expensive on the Kleenex balsam front!