Saturday, July 10, 2010

Imperfection

Saturday - July 10, 2010

IMPERFECTION


Hope that another quite personal reflection might be helpful in your life. I do write these pieces often from where I am and what I am learning personally. It is a very intense and change-filled time. I hope that this helps us pull alongside one another...and that all of us feel especially drawn to the Lord.

(The Lord knows all of us intimately, and prompting both my experiences and my thoughts about them can match your situations in amazing ways...because it is the Lord's thing.)

So here we go.

Up this morning...last day to grab stuff, pack and leave for six days away. First thoughts when waking up, concerns for how the next days will go. Rehearsing how i would respond to this comment or that...and who might be saying the this or that! Hmmm...

Then, over breakfast, Jackie, who daily reads the Inward/Outward devotional downloaded on her computer, peers over her laptop screen and says: "Listen to this"....and reads:

"All this preoccupation with your own imperfection is not humility, but an insidious form of spiritual pride.
What do you expect to be? A saint? There are desperately few of them,
and even they found their faults, which are the raw material of sanctity.

Never allow yourself to be pessimistic about your own state.

Look outward instead of inward; and when you are inclined to be depressed and think you are getting on badly, make an act of thanksgiving instead, because others are getting on well.

The object of your salvation is God's glory, not your happiness."

Source: The Letters of Evelyn Underhill

A little slap in the face to get the head turned in the right direction.

May God's glory be our objective...
Faith from heaven guide our optimism...
And spiritual pride and fussing and fussing be driven far from us.

Smiling in the whirlwind...

David

1 comment:

Galen said...

Isn't pride slippery? The truth is a good help. Caring about what the truth really is, acknowledging it as best we can without putting some kind of spin on it one way OR the other ("Oh, poor me" or, "Oh, look at what a hero I am!") Being as objective as possible, knowing that the greater Truth covers our little (painful) truths where we come up short. The two come together and we get to walk in Grace. Christ is the embodiment of Hero, but He shares the fruits of His strength, so we are never poor.