Humble and Broken

I heard his voice booming from across the room. I blah, blah, blah. And I blah, blah, blah. Then I blah, blah, blah. This guy clearly had I trouble. And the person to whom he was boasting, I thought, was sure enough gonna leave out of there with ear trouble! Not long after this, however, I read of someone who witnessed a man treating his wife and children somewhat rudely. I realized this was probably the only control this man had in his life, she said. Her compassion struck me. So much mercy for someone so polarizing! But she was right, I'm sure.

Humanity requires compassion. Matthew 5:7 says, Blessed are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy. The character of the citizen of the Kingdom of God is one of mercy. G. Craig Lewis has said, "We are human beings, not human doings." That being said, we are to be merciful, not simply perform acts of mercy. How so? By submitting to reality checks via the Holy Spirit that we might not be unaware or caught off guard by the condition of our own hearts. Then we repent and submit even further through obedience to God's Word. Our thoughts and behaviors which flow from the heart will build our testimony, our image which either resembles Christ or is anti-Christ.

So, back to the guy across the room. How does one have compassion on such an overbearing blowhard? --or, at least, that's how I would have defined him as I first listened. By listening when the Holy Spirit reveals my own pride. You see, pride doesn't always show up beating its chest and being obnoxious about its new boat at parties. In fact, I'd bet, most of the time, pride shows up quietly, unobtrusively, sneaking in where it is unwanted, but always finding that tiny crack in the foundation. Or like a weed pushing its way up through a broken sidewalk. The lady walking her dog each morning sees it and thinks to herself, "I should stoop over and pull that," but on second thought reasons she'll get it tomorrow. Day after day the woman passes, the woman procrastinates, and the weed grows. The sidewalk begins to shift as the size of the weed demands sufficient room. One day the woman trips: the tiny weed has been permitted to have its way, warp the landscape, and become a hazard. Pride.

I've come to find also, pride is the flipside of shame. Pride is the "solution" offered to us by the god of this age when we have allowed shame to nest easily in the dark recesses of our hearts. Rather than confessing and repenting of our sin, we dwell in its depths; one lie covering another, one drug masking the effects of another. Shame takes root and sucks any remaining truth from our heart; we doubt our identity, we doubt our ability, we doubt our relevance, we doubt the love of our family, we doubt our control over anything in our world, and we doubt there is any hope for us. Again, rather than taking shame and doubt to foot of the cross, we choose pride. We tell ourselves --to excess --we are the very things shame has assured us we are not. We surround ourselves with things and people who, we think, give us the clout, we think, we need. We talk over others and demand things of others and take the best seat at banquets and put on the biggest show, rather than defer to those around us. We are so fearful we will not be heard or served or honored or applauded, we settle for a manufactured, coerced type of recognition from anyone we can strong-arm into handing it over. We are worse off or, at least, more pathetic than when we were steeped in shame. Pride.

So, whether you're the guy across the room, the one longing for control, or whether you're the one who has simply, with time, let her spiritual guard down; whether your knees have buckled under the weight of shame, and pride has been your shield, mercy awaits. The One True God, patient and forbearing, longs for us to repent, to turn to Him, and to taste of the glory He lavishes upon His children --His children who are humble and broken and resting in Him.