Prideful Flying Snot (no picture needed!)

    Have you ever tried to swallow some spit that just wouldn’t stay down? Then you swallow REAL hard but it still keeps coming back up! So what  do you do then?  Yep, spit it out!! I think the same example can apply to our PRIDE.  Swallow your pride and it might keep creeping back up. Maybe we actually need to spit it out instead!

    You know those “secret places” of our heart and mind that no one knows about? Yes, those things we’d like to keep it that way! I’ve found that sometimes those places pose a perfect breeding ground for  enemy strongholds. He likes to creep in through a skewed thought and then widen that crack through repetition until finally we’re actually listening to him. But what would happen, if when that first ugly head of ________ (pride, deceit, envy, malice, rage, theft, self pity…) showed itself we grabbed a friend or  spouse and confessed that instead of stifling it? Saying to them, for instance, “I’m really struggling with this right now. Would you help hold me accountable/ encourage me in this area?”  Just some act to spit that nasty lugie out before it spreads anywhere else. In doing that, pride has to leave, because confession takes humility.  First Peter 5:5 says “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” That humility is a choice. Being proud comes more naturally!

    However, a walk of humility can sometimes be humiliating! I’d rather keep on the mask that says I’ve got it all figured out and am implementing it daily, can’t you tell!! Humility means admitting, smiling, giving grace because I need grace, extending mercy because God extended it first, asking for forgiveness . . OUCH and OUCH.  Then there’s the flip side. If I share these things, they can come back to bite me! My friend  may think differently about me… may not like me any more…honestly, I may lose my image!  Yes. But is it really “MY” image?

    At the turn around mark one day on my run I saw a “For sale by owner” sign. This reminded me of the fact that I am not my own. I was bought with a price- the precious blood of Jesus.  In exchange for that, I’m asked to surrender the right to myself.  The “RIGHT” to be my own boss…to make decisions for ME…to have the RIGHT to  ___because I deserve it! Have I got to the point of placing a “For sale by owner” sign on myself? Can I resign to the fact that I am no longer my own master? Now, the life I live, I live for my new Master Jesus Christ who actually knows what’s best for me, even though it may seem difficult at the time to walk through.

    

    Well enough deep talk about for sale signs and snot…. But food for thought until next time…..