identity

Shortly after writing yesterday's post, I read 1 Peter 3:8: “Finally, all of you, have unity of mind, sympathy, brotherly love, a tender heart, and a humble mind.” That pretty much covers it, right? If we have these five characteristics, we should not have many people problems. The last one–a humble mind–caught my attention.

Pride is the root of offense. It is only when we think something of ourselves that we can be offended. If my sense of self and my security come from and rest in God–that which is unchanging–then my sense of self and my security cannot be rocked or shaken by the behavior of others. As my pastor has said, “Dead people don’t get offended.” When I die to myself and find my life hidden in God, I’ve moved to another place where offense can’t touch me.

Let’s face it–well, let me face it–my mulling over of conversations, rehearsing the list of offenses, and so forth, comes from being far too self-focused and too caught up in what I perceive others to think of me. My fantasies of confrontation come from a belief that I’m worth defending and that I must prove to others that they can’t treat me that way. It’s a desire to put others in their places.

As I write this, my emotions keep interjecting, “Yes, but…” And that’s part of the problem too. When I allow my emotions free rein, I end up in bad places, because emotions can’t be trusted. The Spirit has been showing me (repeatedly!) over the past year that victory comes when I choose the leading of the Spirit over the leading of my emotions. Turning the other cheek is not a choice of the emotions because it doesn’t feel good. I am growing in my ability to move past my emotions and seek the Holy Spirit’s wisdom for my responses, but in the area of offense, growth is coming slowly.

Among other things, humility allows us to keep our emotions in their proper place. Emotions say, “You’re important–prove it by striking back!” But humility says, “You’re important to God and you don’t have to prove it. Let it go.” Humility keeps the focus on God, while emotions keep the focus on me. I should add here that I don’t believe emotions are a bad thing; emotions are a gift from God and are, of themselves, neutral. It’s what we do with emotions that becomes positive or negative. Jesus appears to have felt some negative emotions in Gethsemane, but He had the wisdom to bring His emotional response to the Father and say, “You show me what to do and I’ll do it, even if it’s not what I want.” That’s humility.

I wrote yesterday that I wanted a promise to hold on to because the psalmist tells us that God’s “promise preserves my life.” God offers quite a few promises to those who choose humility:

• “For You save a humble people” (Psalm 18:27)
• “He leads the humble in what is right, and teaches the humble His way.” (Psalm 25:9)
• “The Lord lifts up the humble” (Psalm 147:6)
• “He adorns the humble with salvation” (Psalm 149:4)
• “to the humble He gives favor” (Proverbs 3:34)
• “The reward for humility and fear of the Lord is riches and honor and life.” (Proverbs 22:4)
• “Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 18:4)
• “he who humbles himself will be exalted” (Luke 14:11)

An impressive list! And of course, Paul reminds us in Philippians that if we want to be like Christ, we must be humble. Clearly, I have every reason to seek humility.

Tagged as: emotions, humility, identity, Jesus, promise, relationships