“Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time.” 1 Peter 5:6
I recently wrote a blog entitled Watching My Team Come Alive and this lesson is more on that. I mentioned that I was asked to pray over our team all year long and part of that involves praying every morning especially for the protection of our team against everything that might come against us. Well I’ll be a monkey’s uncle (what does that even mean?!) if that doesn’t include junk coming against me too.
Yesterday morning as I was preparing for some squad-fighting-the-darkness prayer time, I was humbled into realizing how much validation I put on things going how I think they should. I feel successful if people show up to pray, want to pray, actually pray when we are praying, and knowing that I am the leader. If any one part of that is missing I find myself feeling like, “Why do I even try?” Which leads to, “I don’t want to try.” Which becomes, “Man, I must just suck at everything.”
Now, when I write this it is obviously a pretty ridiculous line of thinking. But when do lies of satan really base themselves on reality anyhow?
So, I didn’t want to pray which Rusty my squad leader immediately identified as something I needed to Recognize and Rebuke (which is our catchphrase for spiritual warfare). I didn’t really want to do that either, so he, as a leader who cares about the integrity of his team would do, did it for me.
While he was praying he mentioned a need for validation which totally struck me as what was going on. I felt totally whiny and said that I didn’t even want to have prayer time that morning. After Rusty prayed he announced to the group that I had an announcement. So I informed them that, “I will be meeting over there to pray.” while I was pointing towards the front of one of our dusty heat shelters.
I walked over to where I had motioned and no one else really stirred from where they were. As I sat down Rusty walked by me and said in the southern accent that characterizes him, “The Lawrd loves you just as much today as the day he died for ya, Sweetie.”
I tipped my head to pray and tears began to spill from my eyes. I confessed, “Lord, I’m sorry. Even if no one else ever were to show up to pray with me, YOU will always be here. It has to be enough; you, Lord, have to be enough.” As I prayed and tears gathered in the dust at my feet, I felt myself being humbled. Humbled into the recognition that I was holding the prayer time being a “success” higher than actually meeting with the Lord myself.
As the Lord gathered me up in his arms from the place where I was a little humble puddle of goop, I felt him grant me freedom to pray. I began praying as I had been longing to do for days now. Honest prayers, protection prayers for my teammates, confession prayers… It was good.
Once I found myself in that place of peace, where even if no one else showed up I would pray with the Lord, a chair was sat down next to my left side and Tammy placed her hand on my knee. A few moments later Terry sat a chair down by my right side and put her hand on my other knee. The Lord granted me a hard time of waiting to reach that place of humble peace and then, and only then, he blessed me with the company of others. If Tammy and Terry had come over right when I started, I can almost guarantee you that I wouldn’t have learned anything.
“Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time.” 1 Peter 5:6
“God opposes the proud, but gives more grace to the humble.” James 4:6
