Lesson of the Day: Humility

This is not "humility" in the sense of being humiliated, but humility in the sense of the giving over of oneself. I have learned through the course of time, the proverb, "The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the All-holy is understanding (Prov.9:10)." I have learned through experience Proverbs 3:5 "Trust in the LORD with all thy heart, and lean not upon thine own understanding." Yet, I am impressed day by day that as much as I think I have learned, there is always room to improve and grow. Sometimes that means taking steps back and sometimes it means relearning what you already know.

Humility is one of those things that creeps up on you. You think you have a handle on it and then POW....something happens to remind you that you aren't as humble as you think yourself to be. I have had that happen many times. I thank God that at least I have begun to learn how to recognize some things that are triggers that can come to be used of evil intent. One of these is when you get into a particularly "grumbly" mood. By this I mean that things aren't going right for you and you start getting perturbed.

• Being perturbed starts leading to complaint and complaint begins to lead to finding fault.
  
• Finding fault leads to supposition
• Supposition to accusation
  
• Accusation to hurtful speech.
  

Thus the cascade. Interesting how it all starts with a shift in mood. I don't intend to get into any of these and I most certainly know that each of these can lead to wrong. Yet again, I am impressed at how easy it is to fall into this in a heartbeat's breath. I'm also impressed at how easy it is to go from one to the other without thinking about it.

I know that many have differing thoughts on how God "operates" in the lives of people. That said, I believe that God's Spirit resides within us, reminding us of what He has written at times just as this. My revelation was like a flagman on the side of the road warning of danger ahead. I could sense the change in mood, feel the tenseness of being perturbed and had made it to "grumbly complaint" within myself when I caught myself.

God's Spirit here, Hey...Jim...that kind of thinking is not a good thing."

"Hey....Hey...Jim...I know you're in a mood, but really this is starting to get a little out of hand. You know they aren't like that...."

"JIM....wake up man! What are you saying? Didn't you just study the other night, to think more of yourself than you ought to (Romans 12)? Now look at yourself. Complaining and now starting to accuse and no one has even done anything except yourself!"

Need to say more? Lesson learned. My lesson for the day is humility, with a shade of shame that I had to rethink and in some sense relearn what I thought I already knew. Thank you Lord for revealing this to me, and help me please to do better.