Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain. 1 Cor. 15:58

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Wednesday, July 20, 2011

Day 32: To Be Calm and Quiet

Psalms 131:1-2~

Lord, my heart is not proud;
my eyes are not haughty.
I do not concern myself with matters too great or too awesome for me to grasp.
Instead, I have calm and quieted myself,
like a weaned child who no longer cries for its mother's milk.
Yes, like a weaned child is my soul within me.

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I'm not going to lie, this has been one of the hardest ones for me to write so far. Wanna know why? Because I fought God on it (I know.. silly Kelly!). I'd have it in my mind... and try to write something different. Do you know what happened? Writer's Block which all writers know isn't fun. So finally, I gave in. I laughed... and I sighed... and I said, "I'm sorry, God. I'll write this for you."

And this is what He gave me.....

Lord, my heart is not proud; my eyes are not haughty.

Lord, my heart is proud; my eyes are haughty. (at times).

There is a fine line between being proud... and being prideful. And yeah, I'm pretty sure we all have crossed it at one time or another. It's not a bad thing to be proud of yourself or your achievements. Even God was 'well pleased' of his Son. He was 'proud' of him.

However, when that proud turns to Pride... and that pride turns to arrogance... and that arrogance turns to "I did it myself without any help from anyone." (Even God) that things turn bad. We talked before about how one small thing can grow into something out of our control. Irritation can finally lead to full on anger. A hurtful word to ourselves ("I can't believe I ate that cupcake... Pig!") can turn into detrimental self-doubt and a horrible self-esteem.

In that same line of reasoning, we all have to watch our pride. When we start deciding that 'we' did something and not God did something, then we need to quickly recognize it and pray for forgiveness.

Wouldn't it be awesome to be humble.... truly.. contentedly humble? It put God first in our lives. Then we would be able to feel secure-- no longer having to prove ourselves to anyone.

We, I, need to pray for that kind of humility. To be proud of our achievements, but not prideFUL of them. To be calm and quiet instead of loud and boastful.

That 131 Psalm really spoke to me. I hope it spoke to you in some way.

God Bless You!
(Encourage someone today :) )
Kelly

(linked with Women living well Wednesday , Word Filled Wednesday , and Women in the Word )

5 comments:

  1. That is a hard passage because I am prideful at times. And I can be loud and boastful. But God is working on me. So thankful for His grace!

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  2. Hi Kelly - lovely post. I've been prideful and loud and being quiet and calm is, well, foreign to me. But I am trying. This is a great scripture and a great encouragement.
    God bless
    Tracy

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  3. Amen, it would be wonderful if we never felt the need to prove ourselves to anyone -- resting in who we are in Him.

    Happy WFW.
    Beth

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  4. What a great post! Our life here is calm and quiet and I like that. The pride stuff used to rear its head in me when we lived in the states. But here in the jungle daily life has a way of humbling everyone.

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  5. Could you imagine not having to 'prove' yourself? That would be awesome :) Thanks so much for all of the comments, ladies :) I really do appreciate it.

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