Today I heard a definition of humility that I had never heard before. Perhaps the context of the conversation, especially in light of where I am at spiritually, emotionally, etc., is for thinking about another time. (Naptime is about over anyway.) It’s worth pondering.
Humility is “hearing God’s voice and doing what He says.”
Part of the interesting context for me today is that tonight Nate and I are meeting with our church community’s “Spiritual Renewal Team” – a prayer team that takes very seriously the responsibility and gift to specifically seek insight and revelation from God for intercessory purposes. Last night I actually got nervous as I thought about meeting with the group. It’s because I know how dried up I feel. Sure, I’ve been sick with what has felt like the flu for the last week – but my spiritual well being has been off for much longer. It’s really an intimacy with God thing that has been lacking…as in, I haven’t made time with Him a priority. If we could apply the Five Love Languages model to our relationship, I would say that Quality Time has been completely off the radar. Just as in any healthy relationship, lack of something as significant as quality time means the relationship suffers. This is just the plain and simple nutshell version of something that obviously goes much deeper than a blog post in blogland. (And it’s really not to be Debbie Downer, either.)
So here’s the cool thing. Picture a sandwich. Doesn’t matter what kind, as long as there are two pieces of bread. My stuff is the filling of the sandwich, like my ‘empty tank’. And my nervousness to come before a group of people that could call out the reality of the rather dismal state of my internal well-being, my lack of discipline, my ‘lukewarm’ attitude on some things, my struggles with selfish desires…
God is sandwiching that stuff in two thoughts, truths even, to help me to see Him in this process and even in the preparation to hear Him tonight. He is always reaching for me, even when I am not reaching for Him.
This new definition of humility to consider is one part of it. Hearing and obeying…but it starts with hearing.
The second is this random reading from Oswald Chambers (My Utmost…) which I read about an hour after hearing the above mentioned nugget on humility.
“Where there is no revelation, the people cast off restraint. (Proverbs 29:18). … Once we lose sight of God, we begin to be reckless. We cast off certain restraints from activities we know are wrong. We set prayer aside as well and cease having God’s vision in the little things of life. We simply begin to act on our own initiative. If we are eating only out of our own hand, and doing things solely on our initiative without expecting God to come in, we are on a downward path. We have lost the vision. Is our attitude today an attitude that flows from our vision of God? Are we expecting God to do greater things than He has ever done before? Is there a freshness and vitality in our spiritual outlook?”
My attention is piqued. The nervousness is dissipating to anticipation. This is a good thing.
