A Puritan Prayer

Lord, High and Holy, meek and lowly,
Thou hast brought me to the valley of vision,
  where I live in the depths but see thee in the heights,
  hemmed in by mountains of sin I behold thy glory.

Let me learn by paradox
  that the way down is the way up,
  that to be low is to be high,
  that the broken heart is the healed heart,
  that the contrite spirit is the rejoicing spirit,
  that the repenting soul is the victorious soul,
  that to have nothing is to possess all,
  that to bear the cross is to wear the crown,
  that to give is to receive,
  that the valley is the place of vision.
Lord, in the daytime stars can be seen from deepest wells
  and the deeper the wells the brighter thy stars shine;
Let me find thy light in my darkness,
     thy life in my death,
     thy joy in my sorrow,
     thy grace in my sin,
     thy riches in my poverty,
     thy glory in my valley.

--from The Valley of Vision: A Collection of Puritan Prayers and Devotions

As quoted in Broken by Nancy Leigh DeMoss

Blessed Are the Poor In Spirit

Sometimes this faith journey feels so paradoxical, so confusing, so hard...

Jesus calls us to be poor in spirit. But the moment that I recognize my poverty of spirit, I become rich in my spiritual poverty and I've missed the mark. Jesus calls me to be humble, but the second I realize my goal of humility, it vanishes because I've become proud of it.

Oswald Chambers says, "I can be so rich in poverty, so rich in consciousness that I am nobody, that I shall never be a disciple of Jesus; and I can be so rich in the consciousness that I am somebody that I shall never be a disciple. Am I willing to be destitute of the sense that I am destitute?"

"But what if nobody notices that I'm poor in spirit? I must point it out to them!" No! I must not! The title of one of Oswald Chambers' devotionals is "The Ministry of the Unnoticed." Do I want to be involved in the ministry of the unnoticed? My whole life I've been trying to get noticed! I talk loudly, and I talk alot. I'm animated when I talk--arms flailing, head bobbing. I'm always trying to be funny--trying to get a laugh. I am always trying to get noticed.

This is one of the dark areas of my life that Jesus wants to clean up. I can be of no use to him if my goal is to be noticed. There's a band I like called, "Take No Glory." When I read that name, I was humbled. I realized that, in my quest to get noticed, sometimes I try to steal God's glory. That is something He will not stand for. God will NOT share his glory. In fact, that was what caused the fall of Lucifer! Yikes!

O.C. says, "The true character of the loveliness that tells for God is always unconscious. Conscious influence is priggish and un-Christian. If I say--I wonder if I am of any use--I instantly lose the bloom of the touch of the Lord." So I'm striving for a goal that I can never reach because as soon as I do, I fall all the way back to the beginning. I don't get to "pass Go" I don't get to "collect $200." What I need to do is keep plodding along, being obedient to God, never asking if I've succeeded because obedience is the goal, not success.

So, I need to keep Matthew 5:3 in front of my eyes... "Blessed are the poor in spirit..."