Pride and Patience

Tags

complete, Humility, Justice, Patience, Pride, Truth, Waiting, without lack

The Lord our God is creative beyond comprehension; majestic beyond description; and perfect in the ways He deals with us as His children. People that don’t know Him are truly missing out on the adventure of walking with Him, for there is really no one like Him. I was in prayer last night while listening to Paul Wilbur sing, Spirit of the Sovereign Lord, come and make your presence known, reveal the glory of the risen King. For you that don’t know the song, it goes on to say, let the weight of your glory cover us, let the life of your river flow, let the peace of your kingdom reign in us, let the weight of your glory, let the weight of your glory, fall. For you that do know the song, I am sure you are singing along as you read this. I love these songs that we used to sing, for they carry a substance that is not seen as often in today’s worship music, but that is another blog.

As I was praying, the Lord spoke to me about someone in my life and the Lord said, “Their pride, produced in you, patience. Now let patience complete its work and you will be complete lacking nothing.” I was stupefied by this statement for it was true. I have someone in my life that is proud, their pride manifests in being stubborn, and unwilling to be transformed. Little did I know, their pride, which is still in operation to this day, has produced in me a patience that I did not see until the Lord revealed it last night. James 1:4 says, “Let endurance, steadfastness, and patience have full play and do a thorough work, so that you may be perfectly and fully developed, with no defects, lacking nothing (AMP).”

Maybe you have someone in your life, usually it is someone you are with daily, a boss, a child, a spouse, a family member, who is proud. They refuse to change, they do not see in themselves what others see in them that is hindering their relationships with God and others, they do not recognize how their pride is blocking their prosperity and they just frustrate you to no end. What if instead of getting frustrated with them; what if instead of nagging them; what if instead of focusing on them; you allowed God to work in you, patience, so you are complete, perfect and lacking nothing? What if, God’s was using that person to develop something in you that you did not recognize you needed? The Lord showed me that when we are lacking something, we look to others to fill that lack or meet that need. It is not the other person’s job to fill a lack in your life, that is God’s job.

The Lord says in Isaiah 55:8, “My ways are higher than your ways and My thoughts are higher than your thoughts”; He says in Romans 8:28, “For all things work together for the good of those who are called according to Christ Jesus”; therefore, God knows something we don’t know and we as people (stubborn, disobedient, just to name a few things) have already worked in God patience, so He is complete, perfect and lacking nothing, now He wants that worked in us. We are created in the image of God, we are to be a reflection of Him to others and the only way to do that is to let Him work in us patience, so we are lacking nothing. Who would have ever thought the person that is proud, would be used to work patience in you, in me. God did, for He sees the connection between pride and patience. Can you see it?

Humility Looks Good on You

Tags

Humility, Increase, Pride, success, wisdom

Proverbs 12:15 “A fool is in love with his own opinion, but wisdom means being teachable.”

Proverbs 12:1 “To learn the truth you must long to be teachable, or you can despise correction and remain ignorant.”

One of the things I love about being a woman is other women. As women we love to ask each other their thoughts about how we look in this outfit or those shoes. One thing I love about men is that they tend to say what we want to hear when it comes to how we look in an outfit we may not be confident in. Men are amazing cheerleaders for women’s confidence and women are amazing companions in the process of exploration and discovery of what works and what doesn’t. When we as people seek out each other’s thoughts, advice or counsel, we are at our most attractive state.

One of the gifts the Lord has given humanity is the ability to make things beautiful. We paint, we write, we create, we build, we design, we communicate, all expressions of beauty in a world that can be very ugly at times. One of the enemies tactics that goes undetected by many is his desire to destroy beauty. The bible says that Lucifer was the most beautiful of all the angels, until pride was found in his heart. It is no wonder that the enemy uses pride as a way to make a beautiful marriage, a beautiful job, a beautiful family, a beautiful church, a beautiful career ugly.

Pride is many things, but at the core it is the thought that I know too much for you to teach me anything else. Pride is a way of protecting ourselves from feeling stupid, from letting others see our weakness, and pride tells us we must be at the top, be the head, be the senior, be the place where the buck stops. Pride creates a dog eat dog world, where competition is the highest value, where individuality reigns supreme, where we puff our chest out so others can see our greatness. Pride is ugly, it doesn’t look good on anyone, but very few people are willing to say it doesn’t look good on you, and even less people recognize in themselves.

The key to our success in every area of life as people is wisdom, but to obtain wisdom you must be teachable and to be teachable you must be humble. Humility makes the world beautiful, makes people attractive, it makes us our best selves. I wonder what we could do together if we were not afraid of admitting we don’t know, we need help, or we want to do it with you. Humility is tied to vulnerability, for you have to let people see you if you want to be humble. Vulnerability is a swear word to most people, so we struggle, fight and work at alone, rather than allow others to come alongside of us and make us great.

Humility is attractive because it is not about you, it’s about what you bring to a situation that can bless others and what others bring to you that can bless you. Imagine how powerful marriage would be if men let women be their helpmate? Imagine how powerful companies would be if we didn’t allow our title to make us think we know so much? Imagine how much of an impact we could make on the world if the church was not a hierarchy but a body of which Christ alone was the head? Pride is destructive to ever part of society, but humility is attractive and humility is being teachable and humility looks good on you!