It Starts Small

Yesterday we explored the choices we make. We either walk with the Spirit or we walk with our old nature and in the flesh. There is no third option. While working, I meditated on the verse used yesterday.

¹³ For you were called to be free, brothers and sisters; only don’t use this freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but serve one another through love. Galatians 5:13

I prayed for God to show me how we ultimately reach out and grab that old nature and willingly walk off the path of righteousness.

Pride.

Pride is the root of all evil.

¹³ To fear the Lord is to hate evil.
I hate arrogant pride, evil conduct,
and perverse speech.
Proverbs 8:13

The evils spoken here are something God HATES! Yes, God can righteously hate. These are particular evils, that in context, Wisdom or Christ, declares the hatred of. Those who have a fear of the Lord, those who have complete reverence for the Lord, should also hate these things. Pride is men and women who think highly of themselves. They speak well of themselves. They despise and hate others. They are in complete rebellion to what Jesus calls us to be: living in humility. Arrogance differs a bit from pride but not by much. It is ascribing that a man or woman’s life belongs to them and only them. Prideful arrogance is a man or woman who believes they intentionally live a life that is their own way. They set out to get what they want at the cost to everything around them. They desire freedom to do what they want, how they want, and they do not care for the things of God because they are the god of their lives.

Pride is intentional. It is intentional rebellion to God. It is looking into the face of God and saying your way is not good enough. Your way is not pleasing to my desires or flesh. It is intentionally saying My WILL not your will be done. Pride abandons responsibilities and blessing the Lord has given for a selfish desire to do what you want. Pride destroys people. It destroys families. Pride destroys marriages. Pride is the road to death.

Pride is running down the path away from the Lord. Pride is hardening your heart against the truth of His Word.

Let me confess and tell you all….I am the professional runner in this event! What makes it even worse, all the while I was running from God, I was sending vain prayers up begging God to do something. Fix this mess I am it! All the while I was running, he was standing next to me. Because pride does not take you anywhere. It is running in place and never actually going anywhere. It is spinning your thoughts and actions in a cycle of doing the same old things with a dumb expectation that things are going to change. That is actually the definition of insanity.

God is patient! When I finally was broken down, exhausted and looking forward, there was nothing to see. It was like being on a desolate planet. No stars to navigate. No mountains to turn my path toward. No tree line. No path in the sand. Just a constant darkness. My life was in complete ruin around me. The smell of the ash and burning choke the very breath from my lungs. That running in place for years upon years had dug a pit so deep and so dark, there was nothing that was going to get me out of it. Have you ever seen a car stuck in snow or mud? As they just spin their tires the car sinks and sinks. That was me. I spun those wheels of pride. I had been trying in my own way, in my own strength, with my eyes fixed on serving an idol, to be the change I longed for.

All the while you are spinning in place, satan is pouring the waters of evil over you. He is drowning you in shame, anxiety, depression and temptations. He lights up the darkness with neon lights of temptation. Take this pill, you will feel better. Drink that beer, it will all stop for five minutes. He sends you temporary relief by suggesting to you that filthy thing, that sinful thing, it is just a one time thing. No one will know but you. It brings a false sense of peace and joy…but soon the darkness returns. His howls of laughter echo across the walls of the pit you have dug. He speaks his lies of shame and destroys the character of God and you in your mind. This is the cycle of pride. But in every believer’s pit, I believe God silences and stops us. We come to a crossroads.

We can chose to turn around or forsake him and keep spinning our tires. Restart a doomed cycle that repeats over and over again.

I was that crossroads for the millionth time. I think as true Christians, we come to these crossroads. When we are exhausted physically and emotionally and on our knees. When we do not have strength to stand up. When we are lost, in darkness with no light to guide us, no direction, we slump to our knees and we have a choice. That choice is to stop running and turn around.

It is only coming to the complete conclusion that our life is a mess because we made it a mess. It is only when we completely admit to ourselves that our way is not going to work that we can truly turn around.

I believe that we get through a half a turn. We know these things but shame stops us from completely turning around. If we turn around and confess ourselves before our Heavenly Father, that means that everyone on this planet is going to know who I am. Everyone is going to know the horrible things that were done to me or that I have done. People are going to reject me, abandon me, and maybe even God will forsake me.

I like to say a year and a half ago this journey began, but truthfully, I saw the cycle six months prior. I sat in our goat barn and had a panic attack. I knew where it was all going. I did that half turn and stopped. I knew what God was asking of me. I knew what I needed to do, but I was scared. Fear flowed through my veins. I was being tormented by the voice of evil dumping shame into my soul and spirit. For six months I was frozen in place. I was afraid to turn around and look upon my Heavenly Father’s face. I was such a piece of junk. He had given me so much and I was garbage. I had taken my life in my own hands and tried to conquer it myself. Be the fixer. How could he ever love me? Why would he ever want to fix the mess I willfully created? I can fix this. I can stop this. Those words are written in my journal and they haunt me.

It was six month later I finally turned around. That last cycle of trying so hard to fix things myself ended in complete ruin. Friend, I pray that if you are stuck in a cycle that seems to keep repeating that hear the calling of the Holy Spirit to just stop and turn around. Do not let pride and rebellion keep you trapped in an endless cycle of cynicism, idolatry, selfishness, and arrogance. You can not fix your mess and you can not change you. Abandoning your life to go make a new life will not fix you or your problems. A new job will not fix things. A change in location will not fix your problems. They are temporary relief that satan hopes you will embrace, but it is his net to keep you trapped in pride. Life will cycle back around and you will still be in the same pit as you started. Pride will tell you right now, no I am not, but it is only a matter of time.

⁵ Everyone with a proud heart is detestable to the Lord;
be assured, he will not go unpunished.
Proverbs 16:5

God promises that your pride will be punished.

⁵ In the same way, you who are younger, be subject to the elders. All of you clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, because God resists the proud
but gives grace to the humble. 1 Peter 5:5

God also promises that those who live in humility and in serve to Christ, are given grace.

Friend, it does not matter how deep a pit you have dug, your Heavenly Father loves you and because of that love He gives grace and mercy to those who truly repent and turn around. To those who truly turn away from their pride he gives grace. Stop the cycle of destruction in your life and turn around and look upon His face. This is the freedom worked through Christ he wants us to have. We were created by Him for Him. Until we are turned around and have completely turned away from ourselves, we will forever be trapped in our own pits.

³ No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish as well. Luke 13:3