These past few days have been some of the most challenging in my life. For a couple of reasons. One being I don’t know what my future holds. I know I have made selfish desicions that could have the consequences of me getting sent home. I will not try and blame anyone else for where I am at. For a long time I tried to. But last night Gary had me give his family and some friends a little sermon on what it means to be humble and to serve and sacrifice. In the process of reading the bible and praying over that I really felt the lord teaching me a lot and breaking my spirit. I learned that Pride or being selfish is a silent killer.
I learned that either with the help of God I can eat away at pride or pride will simply eat me!!
For so long I would always say ya I have a bad attitude BUT, that was my favorite word I always had an excuse. And you know probably a lot of the times I was right. Sometimes I was innocent I was wronged. I was falsely accused, but so what. Does it really matter what anyone else did or said. NO. The fact is that I am selfish and I do have a bad attitude sometimes and I do make selfish choices that affect more people than just me.
Phillipians 2:3 says “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conciet, but consider others better than yourselves. Look not for your own interests but to the interests of others. Over the past month or so I have lost sight of that. I lost sight of what it means to put others first and to walk in humility. I did a pretty good job at putting my needs first and justifing them all the way to being alone in Swaziland. I learned that Pride will make you justified, but there won’t be anyone around when you finally have all the justification you ever wanted. Because in the process of being right I ended up pushing everyone else away.
I also learned that I have no rights. I thought for a lot of this race that I did. I thought it is my right to go and have a free day to do what I want with. Or to go and hang out with a friend even though I know it will make everyone else around me upset. I could justify all of it and rightly so, but you know what this year is not about me and to often I forget that. Phillipians goes on to say that Christ humbled himself and became a servant even unto death. Jesus’s right was to be a servant unto death, what other right could I have above that. Romans 3:23 says for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and romans 6:23 says the penalty for that sin is death. That is what I deserve, death. But by God’s grace he has saved me from that. To be a servant to those around me and to love them.
I will not pretend like it is going to be an easy road, but life never is. It is never easy to love everyone around you. Or to serve them first or to sacrifice what I want to do to make those around me happy. But I also know that it is the only way. I came on this race to change to become the man of God that I know God wants me to be. I lost sight of that. I lost sight of what is important. I wish I would have made other choices and that I was with my team in Mozambique. My heart aches as I sit here and write this.
Please let my life be a lesson to you all. Don’t miss the important thing of being humble as Christ is humble. Don’t miss the point that we are all to serve those around us. To learn to put the desires and wants of those around us before our own. To walk in the opposite spirit of what we feel. There is always that choice that presents itself over and over again. Is about me or about them. With the help of God hopefully we can all learn to walk in the right one. I love you all and thanks for supporting me through this. It isn’t easy admitting I’ve got problems, but I also know that they are my problems and not anyone elses. Please continue to pray for me that God would continually change my heart.
