“A proud man is always looking down on things and people; and, of course, as long as you are looking down, you cannot see something that is above you.”
C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity
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It wasn’t until sometime towards the end of my first year of college that I began to understand grace. I had heard it preached and proclaimed and prayed my whole life, yet the free gift part of grace didn’t practically penetrate my heart and life until sometime around age nineteen.
I’d built my whole life, my whole identity on being the “good girl”. And in freshman year, when God began exposing all of my “good girl” pride, I didn’t know how to handle it.
I knew how to confess.
I knew how to ask God to make me humble.
I didn’t know how to repent…to change my actions.
I though trying harder and praying more and being a better person was the answer. But the more I focused on making myself better, the more I struggled with pride and the more self-righteous I became.
That word, “self-righteous”, is ugly to me. It means exactly what it says: finding your righteousness in yourself. And looking to yourself for goodness and righteousness, even unintentionally, will lead to either pride or despair.
I hit the point of despair during that first year of college. My pride was wrecked. Every little thing I did was somehow selfish or prideful or deceitful. And you would never have known from the outside that I had broken, that all this turmoil was going on inside me.
But as I broke, God opened my eyes to His goodness and grace.
He showed me that He loved me inspire of my sin.
He showed me that my sinning couldn’t change His love for me.
He showed me that He would work in me to make me righteous.
He showed me that He simply wanted me to love and seek Him.
I had been seeking righteousness, goodness, and the image of godliness. But God doesn’t want us to seek righteousness; He wants us to seek Him.
When we’re seeking righteousness, we’re walking around with our eyes on ourselves. When we’re seeking God, our eyes lift up off of ourselves on onto Him.
When we’re looking at God, when we are seeking Him, our own selves will fade into the background. Because when we see God’s glory and goodness and beauty, everything else fades away.
It is impossible to be prideful while standing in awe of God.
This is the key, the first step, the basis of it all.
The key to humility is taking your eyes off yourself and putting them onto Jesus. He will never disappoint.
Be blessed
<3
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When we’re seeking righteousness, we’re walking around with our eyes on ourselves. When we’re seeking God, our eyes lift up off of ourselves and onto Him.
When we’re looking at God, when we are seeking Him, our own selves will fade into the background. Because when we see God’s glory and goodness and beauty, everything else fades away.
It is impossible to be prideful while standing in awe of God.
This is the key, the first step, the basis of it all.
The key to humility is taking your eyes off yourself and putting them onto Jesus. He will never disappoint.
Be blessed
<3
