Only by Pride

Every once in a while I have a day where it seems the world is out to get me. I know, of course, that this is not true, but it seems that way nevertheless. (Ever notice how one’s feelings can so easily fail to correspond with reality?)

On those days, whether it is friction with family, disappointment with other drivers in traffic, or a classful of students who seem bound and determined to make their day (and mine) as unpleasant as possible, by the end of the day it can feel like there is conflict all around me.

The reality usually is that there are only one or two people actually being difficult, and the rest is all the result of my grumpy attitude’s skewed perception.

Of course, God knows all about us, and has anticipated the contention we so commonly experience in life. Instead of turning outward in selfish anger from a bitter, grudging view of how everyone else is to blame, God directs us toward ourselves:

“Only by pride cometh contention: but with the well advised is wisdom” Proverbs 13:10

So there it is: the only source of contention is pride. I therefore have the responsibility to meet contention with humility. It is very rare that I have experienced contention in which my own pride has had no part. There is almost always something I can humble myself and ask forgiveness for in any situation of contention.

Taking a situation from the perspective of humility not only helps us to avoid contention (if we can be humble in the first place, contention won’t have a chance to appear), it also helps with the resolution of contention.

When you’re holding onto a grudge or a grumpy attitude there’s nothing that takes the wind out of your sails faster than having someone come in humility and apologize for something you were partially responsible for. Like I said, it’s usually not hard to find something I could have done better in a given situation. Being the first to ask forgiveness is hard, (what an understatement!) but it goes a long, long way towards mending the rift caused by contention. I Peter 5:5 says we should be “clothed with humility”, which is crucial, for as it goes on to state, “God resisteth the proud, and giveth grace to the humble”.

If we hold on to that feeling of the world being against us, we are in reality refusing the grace God offers for every situation in our lives. –Perhaps it feels like the world is against us because we are pridefully holding on to our “rights” and God is –faithful to His Word—resisting us.

When we respond in humility, however, we open up the floodgates, as it were, for God’s grace to work. We are in agreement with God’s perspective of us as we really are in His sight, and we can more readily see others in the light of that reality as well. Instead of focusing on their faults, we see our own, and are reminded that we are sinners in need of a Savior, just like anyone else.

Humility will also prompt obedience, whether restitution or asking forgiveness, or simply praying for the person with whom the contention was happening. Whatever action the Holy Spirit prompts, pride will balk at it, but humility will embrace it.
So, next time you’re tempted to grumble about the people God puts in your life, remember that you are a sinner saved by grace, and accept God’s grace in humility.

Book Review: Let Me Be a Woman by Elisabeth Elliot

When one of my friends recommended Let Me Be a Woman as our next book club read, I was thrilled! I had heard of this book from several people, and I have always found Elisabeth Elliot's writings to be helpful and insightful, so I jumped at the excuse to spend some time with this little volume.

The book itself is not very long, and although there are 49 chapters, each one is only a few pages. it made a good "filler" read for when I had just a few spare minutes here and there. 

That having been said, this book has a great deal of substance. Written as a sort of letter to her daughter on the occasion of her marriage, this book contains some powerful arguments against the modern feminist movement. It was originally written in 1976, but the message is still vibrantly true and needful today. 

The overall premise is that God has designed women to be the most fulfilled when they are fulfilling the purpose for which He has designed them. 

Simple, right? 

But what the Bible clearly teaches about God's design for women is so very different from the feminist perspective, and there have been many arguments put forth against the Biblical model of womanhood. This book combats some of the most common of these arguments. It also gives some excellent perspective on how God intends for marriage to work and some good advice on some points to consider before entering marriage. 

This is my favorite quote from the book:

 "The fact that I am a woman does not make me a different kind of Christian, but the fact that I am a Christian does make me a different kind of woman. For I have accepted God's idea of me, and my whole life is an offering back to Him of all that I am and all that He wants me to be." 

Getting God's Heart for Difficult People

School began last week, and I had wanted to post this particular blog post before I met my thirteen God-given charges for the schoolyear, but time got away from me and now here I am, one week in, writing about difficult people.

To be clear, I'm not writing because of any specific student. As I contemplated some of the challenges and difficulties I would be facing this year, God brought along a speaker at Family Camp that spoke on exactly what the students I was getting would need. (It never ceases to amaze me how God does that for me!) Because I went into the schoolyear with tools from God's Word and a renewed sense of purpose and the importance of walking in the Spirit every moment, things have gone better than I had thought they would these first weeks.

As I prepared for the schoolyear, though, I began thinking back over past years and past non-school related difficulties with people around me and I realized that the key to dealing with difficult people is to have the same heart God does for them.

When I think about God having to deal with difficult people, I think of the Old Testament example of God's dealings with the nation of Israel. He delivered them in a miraculous way from slavery in Egypt, provided for their needs in the desert, and showed Himself strong on their behalf so many times, and yet they were still selfish, distrusting, disobedient, and unfaithful. But God still loved them, and sent prophets time and time again to turn their hearts back to Himself.  Even though He had to bring judgement upon their sin, He never gave up, and never forsook them.

God's heart cries out for the difficult ones. Jesus wept over Jerusalem, saying,

 "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!"

Nehemiah puts it this way:

"Yet many years didst Thou forbear them, and testifiedst against them by Thy Spirit in Thy prophets: yet would they not give ear: therefore gavest Thou them into the hand of the people of the lands. Nevertheless for Thy great mercies' sake Thou didst not utterly consume them, nor forsake them; for Thou art a gracious and merciful God"  

(Nehemiah 9:30-31)

This passage is preceded by a summary of Israel's cycle from blessing to falling into sin, to judgement, to crying out to God, and then to His blessing again. The final straw, as it were, was the continual rejection of God's warnings, which required God in His perfect justice to bring judgement which removed the people from the land for seventy years. Nehemiah is referring to this, and to the amazing and miraculous way God allowed for their return when their "time out", so to speak, was over.

In reading through the pre-exile prophets, one cannot but be struck with the heart of love behind the warnings of judgement. God could have brought instant judgement, especially since He knew whether or not the people would have repented, but he chose instead to demonstrate His unfailing love over and over again before finally bringing the promised judgement. The focus behind the judgement is that God's people would know that He is God. Then they would be His people, and He would be their God, just as He had planned all along. That is what God desires for the difficult ones: for them to be brought back into relationship with Him as He designed them to be.

Here's where it gets practical: God's love is unconditional, and ours ought to be, too. That doesn't mean we should never say things others find unpleasant, but we should say them from a heart of love, and for the purpose of bringing that person back in line with God's Word.

I am writing this as much for me as for you. It is easy for me to be patient first thing in the morning, but when the same person does the same thing for the millionth time (or at least, it seems like the millionth...) it is easy to give in to the flesh, throw up my hands, and give up. Those are usually the moments when God wants to use me to show love to that person in a powerful way that only He can empower me to do, and if I give in to frustration or anger or irritation, that person will not see God's love in me.

God's goal is to restore, to build. As His representative, I must have His heart of restoration, forgiveness, and love towards others, even when they are difficult. When God prompts it, I must say the hard things, take the hard stand, but always with a heart of love and a desire to see God work to bring that person back to where He desires them to be.

So who is the difficult person God wants you to show His love to today? Ask Him to give you His heart for them. He will, and it will make all the difference!

The Importance of Family Vacations

A week ago, I traveled with my parents to my oldest nephew’s graduation. I almost decided to travel separately, partly because I enjoy driving, and partly because I enjoy the freedom to stop whenever and wherever I feel like stopping on the way back home. My dad had seemed a bit disappointed, though, when I had voiced my inclination to travel alone, so I had changed my plans. After all, it had been years since we had done a trip together, and he had planned to do some vacation-y things on the way back home. 

I am so glad I did not go with my first instinct about this trip. My parents and I had so much fun! It wasn’t as though we did anything extravagant –we stopped at a grocery store and bought food to put in our cooler for lunch in the car later, we went to a free visitor’s center museum, and we took a walk at a small state park while Daddy napped in the car. We did go to one visitor’s center museum that charged admission, but my parents are both seniors now, which gave us a discounted rate.

No, the blessing of this trip wasn’t in enjoying luxuries or in the novelty of things we did (picnic in the car, driving, going to a couple visitor’s centers…). It wasn’t even in seeing something amazing. (We got pictures of Mount St. Helens from afar, but by the time we got to the closest viewing area, the clouds had rolled in.) The joy of this trip was in the bonds developed by experiencing something together. It was my dad’s first visit to St. Helens, and it was fun to show him all the things my mom and I had enjoyed when we had visited there years before. The memories we made are now the building blocks of relationship, because they gave us a new source of conversation, reminiscence, inside jokes, and illustrations for future times together. The shared experience of even a day trip can serve as a catalyst for building relationships with your family. 

Spending a lengthy amount of time in the car together also forces a family to find things to talk about. In our case, it was the scenery, the book I was listening to (with headphones), the talk shows and music everyone else was listening to, and anything else that came to mind as we drove. Because we had such a long time together in a small enough space no one could escape into their own space, we ended up finding things to talk about that we wouldn’t otherwise have bothered to bring up in conversation.

So the moral of my trip is: even if you enjoy the independence of traveling solo, try traveling with others more often: you never know how God might use it!

A Stationary Place

Last week, my Sunday School teacher was teaching about the cloudy pillar and how it was used by God to guide His people. One of the applications he made resonated with me, and I thought perhaps you might benefit from it as I did.

In bringing some practical principles from the manner of God's leading the Israelites on their journey to the Promised Land, my teacher stated an obvious fact which I had never really thought about: Some times, God led the Israelites to a place for the purpose of staying awhile. These stationary places were always for a purpose, and the parallel can be aptly made to God's leading in our lives.

Though the manner of God's leading is different for us than for the Israelites (I haven't seen any cloudy pillars around lately), the fact of His leading is nevertheless the same. Just like the Israelites, sometimes God leads us to places in life where we are to pitch our tents and stay awhile.

I think I am in one of those stationary places, and have been for a little while, and for the most part I am enjoying the benefits and blessings of this stage of life, but just like with any stage of life, some days it's just hard.

It was in the aftermath of one of those particularly hard days that the statement about stationary places came to mind. It made me stop and acknowledge that yes, I was struggling, not with the place I'm camped in, but the fact that I'm still here with no change in sight.

This thought was discouraging at first, but then the Holy Spirit tugged on my heart, reminding me that there can be no joy in following unless I am surrendered to the wisdom of God's guidance.

Imagine the absurdity of going to a country you had never been before, joining a tour group, and spending the whole time saying to your neighbors: "I don't know about this route... I mean, I 've never been here before, but I'm sure we should have taken that road over there... it looks far more suitable to me."

Yet, that's exactly the absurdity of my inward bemoaning of my stationary place. I was behaving just like a little child, impatiently tugging at her parent's sleeve and saying, "Come on, let's go!"

That gentle call to surrender prompted me to humbly acknowledge that God is my Guide, and I can trust His leading, however long His loving hand might require me to stay still.

I must admit that my long talk with the Lord about this didn't change the circumstances that had made the day so difficult, and it still felt hard, but at the same time, I could take those feelings to God and rest in the peace of knowing that this was what God in His infinite and loving wisdom had chosen for me, and that, dear reader, has made all the difference.

After all...

There is no true joy without surrender.

New Beginnings, Slow Transitions, and a Long, Straight Pathway

If you look at my blog posts, you will notice that it has been over four years since my last post. In that four years, I ramped up my college classes, finishing my degree just after beginning my school year with my 9^th class of elementary students. It has been an intense, busy, but oddly enjoyable long haul, and at first I had worried about integrating back into “real life” without homework taking up every spare moment. (Honestly, that hasn’t been as big a deal as I expected.) 

It has been so long since I began college, taking classes online during the summers, and occasionally during the schoolyear as well, that now it’s done, I feel like I am standing at the threshold of a new beginning. All these years I have been holding my breath, as it were, waiting to finish preparing and find what it is that God wants me to do. Now that my schooling is done, it’s time to stop waiting and start doing all those things I have been saying I would do “when I’m done with school”. So, in the light of New Beginnings, I am going to be posting on my blogs again.

Slow Transitions: Not only am I on the threshold of new beginnings, I am also newly embarked upon my thirtieth year. One aspect of turning thirty has been an increased awareness that I will at some point have to set up a home of my own, and I have slowly begun the process of looking through the things I have accumulated, and seeing what I might still need and what I already have (and what I might have but not actually want). 

A result of this has been a new hobby, which has spurred me on to learn more about dishes, especially the lovely blue and white Spode dishes I have begun collecting. (Because, if I have to eventually live by myself, I can at least have pretty dishes to eat off of!) 😊

In light of this new hobby, I will be beginning a new blog, which will be primarily about Spode dishes, although I may from time to time feature other brands of vintage dishes. This new blog is essentially a way to vent my newfound knowledge and to cast a vision for the appreciation of old-fashioned things. Come and see! www.thewindinthewillowware.blogspot.com

 

Now, I’ve never been one to melt into a puddle of emotional goo over my age, and I’m not about to start now, but turning thirty has made me stop and evaluate where I’m at and what it is that God wants me to do with my thirty-year-old self. 

That’s where the Long, Straight, Pathway comes in. All this time I’ve been looking forward to finishing one phase of life so that I could do what I was “really meant to do”. However, if I take a moment to stop and look around me, I seem to already be doing exactly what I am “supposed” to do. My path doesn’t have to change because I reach a milestone, and I don’t have to follow society’s expectations of what I should be and do. In Christ, I am free to be content with His chosen pathway for me, even though it does at times seem to stretch out endless and unchanging far into the distance.

  

After all, what right have I to demand to know what’s miles further down the road if I refuse to walk the stretch right before my feet? So here I am at thirty: walking, trusting, finding comfort and peace in being exactly where God has chosen for me to be.

Insightful Advice...

"To prepare you to carry out the duties of your future mission with ease to yourself, with satisfation to a husband, and with comfort to a household, pay attention to the minor virtues: punctuality, love of order, and dispatch. These are all of immense importance; the want of them in the female head of a family must necessarily fill the home with confusion, and the hearts of its inmates with sadness. Set out in life with a deep conviction of the importance of habits, and a constant recollection that habits for life are formed in youth -and that these habits, if not acquired then, are likely never to be.

Aim at universal excellence. Do little things well. Avoid with extreme dread a loose, slovenly, and careless way of doing anything proper to be done. "

~John Angell James, from Female Piety