Lent ramblings and humble thoughts

 

I am grateful for Lent today.  I've decided to give up chocolate and today is day 2! (I had a jumpstart yesterday!)  Giving up things reminds me to be humble and grateful and I believe this brings me closer to God. 

There is a pretty well known saying from the bible from Matthew 23-11.  It reads like this - 

"The greatest among you shall be your servant. 12For whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted. 13Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the kingdom of heaven in men’s faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let in those who wish to enter.…"


Its pretty clear, right? But is it really that clear in our understanding? Okay, its clear that if we put ourselves on a pedestal and we do things to honor ourselves in the way of putting ourselves above God, then we will be humbled.  Humbled, to me, means we will be brought down to earth, we will be grounded and reminded that we are simple human beings with the understanding and knowledge of a human being, and that we cannot fathom the understanding, compassion, love and knowing of God.  So why do we work so hard to "win"? Why do we work so hard to put ourselves above others on that pedestal and to be the "best"?  Sometimes this happens and the person working so hard "wins" and then continues on to try to always "win".  And I wonder when God will bring humbling.  I've been in that place before, where I felt like I have "exalted" myself and I feel like God has brought some kind of humbling reminder.  But what happens when he takes a long time? And the person continues and continues in their "exalting". Its the worst when someone is in that place and you see them being arrogantly righteous or trying to "win" (meaning trying to bully someone else or yell on top of someone else) around someone who is in a more humble place.  Is righteousness more of a moral correction and can it be done in a nonarrogant way? I suppose a servant would be humble in their rightness and in their correction.  Maybe the servant can also teach the one exalting itself that "winning" and being the "best" doesn't matter as much as being humble. So then I think, is any form of exalting oneself not being humble?  I honestly don't know.  If we are honoring ourselves, is that the opposite of humbling oneself?  And if were listening, is God sending messages to be more humble in words, in actions, in families, in  relationships, in jobs, in life? 

I suppose when Jesus calls the scribes and Pharisees hypocrites, it is because they exalt themselves and do not humble themselves, and they are meant to be representatives of God.  They miss the idea that God is loving and compassionate, they act a certain way in public and act differently when not in the synagogues they have essentially lost their "humbleness."  If they followed what they preached, I wonder if that is how God would have humbled them.  Is humbling oneself being true to our "inside self", and does this then, prevent a hypocritical nature?  Is every form of exalting oneself hypocritical to our inside true humble nature? When he says "You shut the kingdom of heaven in men's faces", is this denying that God is loving and compassionate and in their exalting of themselves and in their arrogant righteousness ,"nor will you let in those who wish to enter...", keep people during that time from having a relationship with God?   


Byron Katie in her book "Who would you be without your story?" says this on page 60 and I'd love to share it with you as it resonates with me "So if I tell you that I'm wiser than you are, I'm going to have to get pretty fierce with it because I'm never going to believe it."  In my opinion never going to believe it because "wiser" is a subjective judgement based on one person's opinion and someone may be wiser than another in one subject but not another.   She continues "So this is where war breaks out.  And if you don't see me as wiser, then we part ways.  One day I noticed that I don't believe that, and its not a humble thing, its simply that I can't know.  So I dropped the contest."  I love this quote because it reminds me to be humble and also to look inward when I have thoughts/judgements.  If we can drop the "contest" does this allow a more humble self and by default, we are more of servants to eachother? 



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