faithMile

By Katryna Starks

HUMILITY

We are often told to be humble and to “let God do it” when it comes to our accomplishments. Often, we don’t understand what that means or how to live that out. The first step in having God’s humility is to understand our proper relationship to him. God is like the sun, and he shines. We are like the moon. We only appear to shine. The moon doesn’t have any light of its own, it only reflects the light of the sun. When the moon is not able to reflect the sun’s light, we only see a part of it. We see “half-moons” and “crescent moons”. It’s not that the moon actually diminishes or disappears, it’s that we only see the parts of it that are properly reflected. The rest of the moon is in darkness and therefore invisible.

The same is true of us and our relationship with God. Our job description, as humans, is to reflect God’s glory. That’s it. The whole thing. But we are capable of maneuvering ourselves in such a way that we are out of God’s direct light upon our lives. Like the Prodigal Son (Luke 15: 11-32), we can sin or turn away or just forget who we are and who we belong to. At those times, we become like “half-souls” or “crescent people”. We don’t reflect the full glory of God because we have moved out of God’s light.

PURPOSE

Our purpose is to reflect God’s glory and we can do this in two ways. One way is that we simply obey God’s orders in the Bible. There are several, but the Ten Commandments are the ones that sum them all up – and, Jesus said when asked, if you can’t remember ten, just remember two: Love God above all, and love your neighbor as yourself (Matt 22:36-40).

Many of us struggle to find “our specific purpose” in God and we don’t know what to do when we don’t feel like we are hearing from him. In those times, go back to Matthew 22 and just do the two things that you know. If you need more specifics, see Micah 6:8 where God enumerates his commands with three requirements: act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with God.

PASSION

The second way to live out humility and purpose is to find and live our passion. Passion is the essence of humility. You’ve probably been taught the opposite, so this can be confusing. Living MY passion is the way to live GOD’S humility and GOD’S purpose for me? Exactly.

Think about the last time you did something you were passionate about, or created something out of passion. It could be a poem or a painting or simply cleaning the carpet in your living room. When you were in the process of doing whatever that is, you probably got so absorbed in your actions that you lost track of time. When you were finished, you looked proudly at your accomplishment, but it wasn’t the type of pride that says “I’m better than others.” It was the sense of pride and accomplishment that comes from having fulfilled a part of yourself. For a moment, as you admire your handiwork or remember the process, it feels as though all is “right” with the world. And for you, for a moment, it is.

This is the pride of accomplishment that God had in Genesis when he created the heavens, earth, animals and humans and stood back and said “it is good.” It is fulfilling and not haughty. When you live in this sense of passion, its impossible to not be humble. While God fully owned his creation, we know when we live in those passionate moments that our accomplishments are not our own. We know that we have been helped. Even famous non-religious musicians will speak of divine intervention when they wrote certain songs. In the past, some have called it “genius” and some have called it “a muse”, but there is a definite sense in which we know that the result of our passionate works is not ours alone to claim – and therefore we are humble. If we become successful and we try to create those same works without the same motivation (i.e. writing songs for money and not for passion), we may meet the same material success, but we won’t retain our humility.

Humility is not a real sense that we are not worthy; nor a false distancing of ourselves from our works. It’s living fully in the light that we are given without fooling ourselves into believing that we are it’s source.

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Footnote: A good summation of this is a famous quote by Marianne Richardson. She is a new age teacher and not a Christian one, but I believe that God speaks to his entire creation and sometimes people who don’t believe in him still hear him (it’s not that what they hear is untrue, it’s that they don’t know/acknowledge where it comes from.)

In this famous passage, Williams says, “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

She is almost right. It isn’t “our light” that shines. It’s God’s light and we are reflecting it.

Will you?

By Katryna Starks

“A saint is just a sinner who fell down …
… and got up”
— Donnie McClurkin

In the companion piece to this one, “We Fall Down . . .”, we took a good, long look at our mistakes and we found out the lessons that we could learn from them. Now, we move from learning to healing as we take a good, long look at forgiveness.

By God

It’s almost too easy. 1 John 1:19 says, “if we confess our sins, then He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” That’s it. No walking through fire or waging war. No tests of endurance or obstacle courses of faith. Just confession and acknowledgement that we have sinned and a desire to restore the relationship with the one we sinned against.

It’s amazing how we tell our children to apologize when they’ve hurt someone, and that their apology makes it all better. The kids usually respond with smiles – eager to continue playing with the one they hurt just a few moments ago. And, also amazing, the other always plays back. But when we hurt God, we slink away from Him, afraid to say “I’m sorry.” Afraid that it won’t be enough.

God says ” I am the one who will blot out your transgressions and remember your sins no more.” (Hebrews 8:12) And the price – a deep, sincere and life-changing apology, to which He responds “a contrite heart I will in no way cast out.” (Psalms 51:17)

Do you need to be forgiven by God? Ask, and you shall receive.

Of Others

Jesus told us to pray that our sins would be forgiven – but He also had a request. His word to us was to ask God to forgive us as we forgave others. He even went so far as to say that if we didn’t forgive others, then God would not forgive us. (Matthew 6:15) To Jesus, our forgiveness of others was so important that He even put it above sacrifice, implying that even our sacrifices to God are tainted because of our unforgiveness toward each other.

Is God playing a tit-for-tat game with grace? Of course not. But for us to accept forgiveness and then deny it to others is evil. In our human nature, we would probably want to hurt or wrong others as we have been hurt or wronged. In the same way, we should eagerly forgive others as we have been forgiven.

Of Ourselves

There is someone in your life whom God has forgiven – but you have not.
God doesn’t remember their sins anymore – but you won’t let them forget.
God says they aren’t condemned – but you constantly make them feel guilty.
God says “my grace is sufficient” (2 Cor 12:9) – but you can’t make them pay enough.

Who is the person you’re doing this to?
Take a good look in the mirror – it’s you.

Like the wayward minister in The Scarlet Letter who beats himself with a whip, we berate ourselves with our thoughts and punish ourselves with self-sabotage. We think that it’s a sign of humility to consider ourselves so low, but it’s actually a symbol of pride. “Now, wait just a minute,” you say, “pride is thinking of yourself too highly.” Well, what would you call it when you choose your own condemnation over God’s grace?

If you have asked, then you have been forgiven. God’s word is that “there is now no condemnation in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1) and that “he whom the Son sets free, is free indeed.” (John 8:36)

Believe it.
Walk it.
Live it.
It’s done.

Read the companion piece to this article, We Fall Down . . ..

by Katryna Starks

“Take Chances!
Get Messy!
Make Mistakes!”
— Teacher, The Magic School Bus

Mistakes. If you’re anything like me, you hate them. Not other peoples — your own. Making a mistake can make us feel anything from slightly embarrassed to completely stupid — and, in the worst cases, unworthy of God’s love. But, what are mistakes, really? Well, they’re opportunities to learn!

The Same Mistakes

Do you find yourself making the same mistake over and over again? That can be a frustrating experience. But take heart – it’s also a learning experience. Here’s what we can learn from making the same mistakes:

There is a habit, a problem area or a “blind spot” in your life. Think about the last time you made that same mistake. Ask yourself “what lead up to it?” Think about the circumstances around your mistake. Where were you? Who were you with? How did you feel?
Now, think about the time before that one, and each time before that. Were you in similar circumstances? Do you see a pattern? Pray about your mistake. Does God show you a pattern? Stop the pattern and you stop the mistake.

You need to learn a lesson and you keep changing your outward circumstances without learning it. I remember a time in the not-too-distant past when I had a problem with authority. Particularly, the authority at my job. I didn’t have a boss that I liked and I didn’t want to submit to someone who, in my opinion, was wrong (no, I’m not married). In order to not have to submit to my boss, I would find another job. But guess what? My new boss would turn out to have all of the same qualities I didn’t like about my old ones. I finally realized that God was teaching me to submit to authority. Once I humbled myself (and believe me, it was a humbling experience), I ended up in a great job — with a great boss.

You need to work on your relationship with God and it’s manifesting in your life. Do you keep finding that your mistakes involve a lack of trust? Do you need to trust God more? Do your mistakes involve a lack of obedience? Do you obey God? Sometimes God will use situations in our lives as mirrors for our relationship with Him. Strengthen your relationship with God and the vicious cycle will end.

Different Mistakes

As frustrating as it can be to make the same mistakes over and over again, it can be equally jarring to find that you’ve solved one dilemma — only to find yourself in another. Here is what we can learn from our new mistakes:

You’ve dealt with the old issues and you now have new challenges to face. As humans, we all have several issues to deal with and bad habits that need to be corrected. And God fully intends to help us correct every one of them — but not at the same time. If you have conquered a bad habit, but find your attention drawn to another bad habit, then you’ve done well with the first and now your assignment is to work on the second. Best wishes to you. Keep the faith!

You’re still not learning the first lesson, so God has to give it to you another way. Examine the principles behind the mistakes. What is the nature of the solution? Does the new mistake seem to be a lot like the old one? God could be trying to teach you an old thing in a new way.

You’re growing. New mistakes could be the result of launching into uncharted territory. We want God to take us to new heights, but we often don’t want to do the work (or make the mistakes) in order to get there. We rarely learn a new thing by doing it correctly the first time — and being a Christian doesn’t erase the natural learning process. Mistakes are necessary in order to grow. Keep at it. At the end of the process, you will have reached new heights and learned a little perseverance along the way.

No matter what kind of mistakes we make, if we take the time to look deeper and pray, there are lessons to be learned from all of them. One of the most importance lessons we learn from all of our mistakes is the lesson of forgiveness. For more on forgiveness, read the companion article … But We Get Up.