Humbled

Humbled…

What does it actually mean to be humbled? Is it an external act that takes you off your high horse or more of an internal feeling that brings you lower and gives you a better perspective of your actual status?
Im not sure, i refuse to look up the dictionary meaning til after this blog. 
Why are we humbled in the first place? I believe it roots from pride, the idea that what we do, actually have some substantial importance. Thats what the big dream is, is it not?
To make a ripple effect in time? Thats why we dream of being astronauts and doctors and CEO's of big corporations. 
The polls are in, the people that rise to this achievement is less than one half of 1 percent. 

"May the odds be ever in your favor"

I looked out at the stars a few nights ago and a numbing realization smacked me in the face. I am tiny. Like really tiny. I may have 80 something billion neurons in my brain but relative to this world, even this city, even this room i am currently sitting in, i have very little too offer.
I'm not even sure how they came to the conclusion of 80 billion, i'd like to see that study. 

"Humility is the proper estimate of oneself" -Charles Spurgeon 

Back to being humbled. 
I woke up at 6 the other morning to go on a run with Bryan. I tossed and turned in bed, and i woke up a little nauseous but nothing to crazy given the doxy i have been taking. I walked into the mens restroom and started throwing up for about 20 minutes. It was gross as i observed my previous three meals be reduced to an aidic goo.  Quite literally on my knees in this tiny restroom in the middle of Guatemala, and i can think of nothing but these miserable circumstances. 
I finally got up and i could barely walk, everything down to my bones were burning, and then i felt God speaking, "are you still going to praise me?"
I went back to my tent and laid down and opened up to Philippians 

"Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness" Philippians 2:5-9

Nothing…. we are nothing
Sobering

"He who has the desire to keep his life will have it taken from him, and he who gives up his life because of me will have it given back to him" Matthew 10:39

How do we become nothing? How do we grasp this? What is the saving grace from this feeling of insignificance? 
We fill it with temporary joys such as cars and houses and shallow relationships. With food and movies and busyness. With jobs and salaries and other useless pursuits. 
Yet at the end we still long for more…

"The only hope of a decreasing self is an increasing Christ" F.B. Meyers

It sounds dumb to the world. Christ flipped the world on its head. "The first will be last, the last first". Grace. Turn the other cheek. Make yourself low. Destroy your status. Relenquish your rights to everything. Only then will you be whole.

I was sick. Curled up in a bed feeling like i had nothing to offer. Having to rely on everyone around me. In all my "strength" and "knowledge" i was reduced to nothing. I have lived a majority of my life relying on my own strength. I am done. 

The Kingdom of Heaven resides in me. Is there anything more beautiful that this world has to offer? My soul longs for Him and only He will satisfy. I pray i wont let sickness or failure or approval of man dictate my faith in Jesus. 

In my awful circumstances will I still praise him? 

Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope.  And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.
You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Romans 5: 3-8

I hold to this promise and gift and I sit with hands open to you God… i asked to be humbled… over and over til i break.