I've been caught by surprise by my pride. It kind of snuck up on me. At times, it has ambushed me! I didn't see it as pride, but more and more, God is revealing it to me in the subtle ways that it has taken shape in my life. I've been unwittingly hiding it. God is good about revealing those kinds of sins when we least expect it.
A few weeks ago, I was blogging about waiting. As of today, it appears that my waiting has ended. I have the thing I was waiting for, but it's not a done deal. It's still possible that I could lose it. I still have some waiting to do.
Today my devotional reading was from Habakkuk 2:2-4. God had showed Hab a vision. In chapter 1, Hab was getting impatient and had done some "righteous complaining" about the wait. God answered:
Habakkuk 2:2-4
My study Bible says that God's instruction to write down the vision was an unusual one. Typically, prophets only spoke the word of the Lord. I wonder if it wouldn't be a good idea for us to write down the "visions" or hopes and dreams that God gives us--you know, those things you've been believing God for for years--the salvation of a loved one, the end to some one's endless suffering, the restoration of a relationship. I have some visions and dreams for my kids, my marriage, my church. And I've written some of them on the blog spot.
And I've also complained on this blog spot. Some of it has been righteous complaining and some of it has not. According to my pastor and the first couple of chapters of Habakkuk, there is such a thing as righteous complaining. Laying it all out before God then (this is what makes it righteous) waiting for God's prescription--His instruction--and following through on that instruction. In Hab's case (and more often than not in our cases) the instruction was to wait--in faith.
A proud man would have given up waiting. He would have taken control of the situation and made things happen. Oh, how often I've been guilty of that--until I was faced with situations that were so far out of control that I knew I could do nothing. Those have been the times that I learned the most about God, about His timing, about life, and about myself. Those have been the times when pride was exposed. It was no longer hiding, no longer subtle. It was outright distrust of God. And it took me months to work my way out to where I could trust Him again. But it was
a different kind of trust. A much deeper trust. One that knew that I could get through anything with Him. I was finally able to let go and say with every ounce of sincerity I could muster, "I trust You, Lord," even when nothing about my circumstances had changed.
As this section of scripture ends, while the proud man is not upright in his soul (and obviously doesn't like to wait,) the just shall live by faith--and that involves a lot of waiting!
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I would love to hear from you! Let me know what you think and how I can pray for you. Most of us are carrying some pretty heavy baggage and the good news is, you don't have to carry it alone! You can lay it at the feet of Jesus, and sometimes we need help just letting go of our baggage and not picking it up again. We're in this together!