May 26, 2010
A bear lives there.
Posted by Michael Howarth in Gospel Living | Comments (5)
For most of my Christian life I have had the general awareness of pride in my heart and the knowledge that it affects my life in a variety of negative ways. I think many Christians, myself included, interpret this vice as one that expresses itself brashly….like cutting someone in line at Starbucks or interviewing yourself on your own talk show. I’m not sure if you’ve seen the talk show I'm talking about but I kid you not; the host sings the the opening song as images of him are beamed onto the sides of skyscrapers and in the episode I watched (ok I’ve watched 2…errr…3) he actually interviewed himself. I’m not here to judge, it’s just that when I try to interview myself in my living room my wife tells me to cut it out and take out the trash or help with the baby, so I'm a little bitter. But I digress. My point is this, I have not seen until recently how insidious the pride in my heart can be.
Worse yet, judging someone else (see the talk show excursus above) or even ourselves for what appears to be the external outworking of pride can be a hindrance or even a willful distraction from seeing the root of issue; the deep quiet rebellion lurking in corners of our hearts. The kind that does not express itself so flagrantly and can only be encountered when the Holy Spirit chooses to show us our depravity. It's been said that the Holy Spirit is a gentleman and I am thankful He made sure I was seated for the grand unveiling, it was terrifying.
The face to face encounter with the beast came recently when I was under conviction for sin in my life. I saw the sin, confessed and repented and thought I was done. The problem was what John Owen calls “speaking peace to your own heart”. He cautions in his book, The Mortification of Sin, that believers should be careful not to speak peace to their own heart but to let God speak it when He wills. The way I had been speaking peace to myself was to confess and hastily move on. I would take the pain that I caused others in my life and basically say to them “get over it”. Not in words but in attitude. I have confessed and repented, please pass the ketchup and keep it down, I'm trying to prep for my interview.
Internally this expressed itself as pain management. I did not want to feel the pain I had caused. A friend of mine graciously informed me that the pain and discomfort I was feeling internally were God's grace and love; I would be wise to use them, better yet, let God use them, to shape my heart.
“My son, do not make light of the Lord’s discipline, and do not lose heart when he rebukes you, because the Lord disciplines those he loves, and punishes everyone he accepts as a son.” Proverbs 3:11,12
The truth is, confession and repentance bring with them emotional pain and, many times, strained relationships. It’s at that very point that God will bring healing and true change; when we "do not lose heart," squirm away, or push the pain and grief aside. I am learning to face the pain, stop squirming, and stop trying to move on in my pride. If I truly desire the strained relationship to be healed, if I truly desire to be sanctified, I must let Him escort me into the pain. We need to take a tour of the devastation together so I can be transformed by His love, even as we stand in the rubble.The pain is His love and he will use it to form my heart. The discomfort is His hands forming the clay. The very fact that I saw the sin in my life is His grace! I write all this not as a vague confession but because I feel like I need to see the words in front of me. I need to get it, it's a core lesson.
The pride I’m talking about is at the root of every Christian’s “old man”. It says "I am autonomous, I can do what I want, I can fix myself." In me it is subtle, quiet, and deep. There's a difference between cognitively knowing the human heart is prideful and having the Holy Spirit actually show you the very thing that would kill you. It’s the difference between being in the woods knowing bears live there and turning around on a hike and seeing a grizzly. Between, "Wow, that would be scary." and "That's a grizzly, I am going to die." Without Jesus, the fear would be paralyzing and the fight over before it started. This is why I am convinced God shows us our pride in stages, general to more specific. If we saw it all in one moment we would freeze in fear and be eaten alive. Note how Paul who met Jesus in blazing light and wrote 3/4 of the New Testament calls himself "the chief of all sinners." Years from now as I grow closer to God I believe I will look back and see yet more of my own arrogance on display. This realization was key for me. It forces me to stay humbly seated at His feet, to daily plead for mercy...and to give mercy. I know pride will kill me and I do not want to die that death. I must throw myself down at the cross and daily give my weakness to Jesus.
All of this has completely changed my attitude towards pain and guilt. The scriptures say that there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ. That is the truth and it is wonderful but for a long time I think I've twisted that beautiful truth to mean that I get a free pass from the emotional pain my pride causes. So what good is the pain and conviction? Well, we have a cancer, the Holy Spirit is the surgeon, the pain is His scalpel, the conviction is His radiation, and we are on the table. My issue was that I would look at the X-rays and MRI's and then jump off the table declaring I was healed simply by the diagnosis. In Christ, the pain and guilt that our sin brings are not used for our condemnation but for our sanctification. We take away one of God's mightiest tools, one of his grandest expressions of grace, when we do not allow the conviction of the Holy Spirit to shape us. I can't tell you how thankful I am that He showed me this.
Humility, I think, is less a virtue to be obtained and more a place we are brought to when He shows us that we are utterly helpless without Him. I want to know, in a place deeper than my pride, that if I go it alone, I will fail. That is my prayer. My weakness is complete apart from Christ, I must give it to Him.
"But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong". 2 Corinthians 8-10 .
Posted by Michael Howarth in Gospel Living
