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!

Wisdom the Way to True Success

Tags

fear of the Lord, success, Wealth, wisdom

What Are You Waiting For?

Tags

Change, Christianity, dream, God, grow, just do it, mature, obey, success

“The bottom line in the Christian life is obedience and most people don’t even like the word.” Charles Stanley

 

While in church this morning, the Pastor preached on the need to work on our bodies, he spoke about how neglecting the temple of God is hindering the work of God in our lives. It was a powerful sermon, inspirational, convicting, all around motivating. I was on the edge of my seat ready to change, yet again something in my life, based on what I heard. But others were not ready to change anything, someone even came to the Pastor and said, I am going to the Chinese buffet for lunch today. I just smiled on the outside, but began to ask on the inside, what are you waiting for? When are we as Christians going to obey instantly what we hear. Week after week, in churches all over the world, people are hearing sermons, some more inspiring than others, but sermons nonetheless, with no intention of doing anything different. What are you waiting for? What do people need to hear in order to obey, what they hear?

 

These thoughts and so many others have been swirling in my head all day long. I was at a Women’s Conference this weekend and one of the talks was during the offering and the Pastor said, leadership is not being able to make decision and boss people around, leadership is being the first to do something. He went on to say a leader is the first one to do something, which makes the way for others to do it. I was so moved by this, because I have struggled for years with the lack of leadership I see in so many sectors of society and life. Yet, I could not put my finger on it. But this is it, there are people with titles that declare them a leader, but they are not leading the way into anything, they just like being in charge. They like the control, the respect, the honor of their position, but what are they doing to lead. When was the last time they heard something and changed immediately?

 

So, whether it is church people sitting in the pews or manager, politicians, CEO’s or whomever is called by the name leader, people are not doing anything with what they hear. We listen and listen and listen, with no intention of change, then ask the question, why is nothing changing, why is this happening to me, why, why, why? It is simple, but true, no change will come, unless you, unless I am and willing to do something different. If you go to church with no intention of doing anything different, you will look the same, pray the same, talk the same, walk the same year after year.

 

BUT GOD…God has put something inside of every person, He has put the desire for more, the desire to grow, the desire to change inside of you, inside of me. There is something in our spirit man that hears the truth and knows we must do something different. We may not know how to do it, we may not know where to start, we may even talk ourselves out of it, but we all know that there is something great inside of us. That is God in you! When you come to church and worship is going on, something inside of you says, raise your hands, during the preaching, you feel the desire to shout amen, you know you were made for more than this. God is for you, so who can be against you, we say this all the time, and honestly, the only who can stop us, is us. I am the one that quits, I am the one that says, I can’t, I am the one that does not want to change. The problem lies with me. I am not a victim, I cannot blame anyone else, the truth is, if nothing changes in me, it is my fault. God is for me, so who can be against me? The answer is no one, so stop getting in the way of your own victory, stop waiting for someone else to do what you are called to do, stop defeating yourself.

 

What are you waiting for? Obey God, be successful, enjoy life, worship your heart out, sing a little louder, dance a little longer, dream a bigger dream, do what you were created to do. You only have one life to live and if you don’t live it, no one else can do it for you. What are you waiting for? Today is the day of salvation, now is the time, stop putting it off until tomorrow. Start that diet, fill out that application, ask that girl to marry you, whatever you have been stalling to do, do it now, change is hard, but change is good. What are you waiting for?