What We All Need, But Often Do Not Want

Sitting in church on Sunday listening to the sermon, a war broke out. Not a war between people over a minor theological detail or that the music was this or that, but a war in my soul. It was as if a conflict broke loose between the Spirit, my flesh and the devil. I heard this quote read on the screen...

"Now what you want to get clear is that Pride is essentially competitive - is competitive by its very nature - while the other vices are competitive only, so to speak, by accident. Pride gets no pleasure out of having something, only out of having more than the next man [or woman]. We say that people are proud of being rich, or clever, or good-looking, but they are not. They are proud of being richer, or cleverer, or better-looking than others. If everyone else became equally rich, or clever, or good-looking than others there would be nothing to be proud about. It is the comparison that makes you proud: the pleasure of being above the rest." - C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity: The Great Sin. pg. 122.

Jesus exposed my sin. I was found out. I had nowhere to hide. But I had a choice. Do I resist the Holy Spirit, holding on to my pride and making excuses, or do I humble myself to the Lord of lords and confess my great sin?

I yielded. Sobbing in my spirit and tearing up in my eyes, I cried out to the Lord in my heart. I sat through the sermon as Jesus scrutinized my soul, showing me once again, the depth of my pride and sin that hinders so much.

Communion came. I desperately cried out for the grace that the bread and juice represent. Jesus' broken body on the cross and His blood poured out for the forgiveness of sin, taking on the wrath of God in my place, so that I would not have to. Grace. I desperately needed grace.

Sitting down with the communion in my hands, I was overwhelmed with the brokenness of my sin before a holy and loving God. I found a rest in Him as war still waged in my soul.

Another choice. "Go and humble yourself." I had passed prayer servants on my way to communion. God not only wanted me to be humbled and broken before Him, but also my fellow humans, representing the countless many which my pride had hurt.

Approaching the prayer servants with tears in my eyes, I confessed my sin of pride through comparison and competition. That I have for so long found my worth, value and significance through what I do. They received me in grace, praying over me in the brokenness of my sin.

Returning to my seat, broken in spirit and humbled in pride, I knew Jesus was beginning a process. He broke through the gate and now needed to loot the sin of my soul.

That night, I read the following from The Faithful Gardener by Clarissa Pinkola Estes:

"Uncle dug deeply along the perimeter of the field following the general camber of the new highway, and leaving behind a long snaking mound of dirt. He dug and shoveled and shoveled and dug. Various neighbor men interrupted their own work to walk down the road to advice. They returned with shovels and pick-axes to help.

By afternoon, for far as one could see, there was a trench that ran along the edge of about one-half of one hectare. It was perhaps two cubits wide along the narrow side of the field that would remain in village hands.

Night fell. Uncle trudged home...

He left the house carrying an old dented red bucket brimming with fuel. He walked, titled way over to one side with his burden.

There in the field, in the completely windless night, he carefully poured the fuel all along the field on two sides and once down the middle. From the edge of the field, he struck wooden stick matches and threw them in low at several places.

The entire field erupted in a blaze so great that it drew people as far away as the black smoke cloud could be seen...

The next day, the field was still smoking but fire-dead. With his razor-sharp hoe, Uncle skinned back blackened roots and stubble here and there, thereby exposing the earth even more.

'So you see,' Uncle said, ' this burning and blackening of the soil here? Soon much will come of it, so much that you will not believe it.'

'What will you seed here?' I asked.

'I will seed nothing,' said Uncle.

I did not understand. We had burnt land before, for the ash made tired ground more fertile again.

'Why will you leave the land bare and unseeded, Uncle?'

'Ah, as an invitation, my girl.'" (pgs. 33-35)

At times in life, God needs to set fire to our pride, burning it to the ground so that only the scourged, blackened soil in our hearts is left. When He has finished His work of breaking our pride, only then are we ready for Him to seed. The seed of the Kingdom is then invited into the soil of our soul.

So when the time comes, whether God chooses a moment or you ask Him, will you let Him break your pride? Break it in any way He chooses? Will you let Him burn you to the ground so that your soil will be ready for Him to send seed on the Wind?

We all need to grow in humility, but we often do not want to take the road that gets us there. Will you follow Jesus down that road?

Jesus, may you burn our pride to the ground so that we have ready soil for you. Amen.

Recommended resources for growing in humility:

From Pride to Humility, Stuart Scott

Mere Christianity. Ch. 8: The Greatest Sin, C.S. Lewis