Tag Archives: humility

Biblical Personalities That You Identify With

Posted on by Standard 19

 

I’ve mentioned many times over again on this blog that I love to watch people, and to learn just what makes them tick. People, to me, are the most interesting creatures, and not a single one of us can be recreated in entirety. Considering how many of us souls have graced the earth since the beginning of time, that concept should just blow your brain right out of your head. It sure does mine.

That being said, though, I truly believe that each of us Christians can relate to at least one biblical personality. I think God purposely covered each basic personality trait through His people long ago, and I can’t even begin to tell you how many times this has brought me comfort.

The biblical person that I relate to the most is David. And no, it isn’t because he was a king, or even more amazing, called a man after God’s own heart. I wish. Instead, it is because of the way he responds to life that I tend to recognize in myself.

David spent a good deal of his childhood alone. Because of this isolation, he developed a true relationship with the Lord, and even though he committed all of the most humiliating and disgusting of sins, he had the wisdom and knowledge from the Lord to accept his discipline, and then move past it, never once doubting that the Lord still loved him. What I recognize in myself is that I handle discipline from the Lord much the same way, and though I’ve had my issues with trust, I have always known that I was saved. I think David did too.

David had an intimate understanding of who God was, and I recognize that kind of relationship with God in my own life. He was a warrior, but he wrote poetry as well. He played a harp, but he could sling a stone and kill a giant. Sometimes, I’m weak, yet other times I can be very strong. No, we obviously aren’t exactly the same, but I understand his reactions and decisions better than I do other people in the bible.

My daughter Rebekkah, on the other hand, always tried to insist that she could identify with Paul better than any of the other biblical people, but I just never did see it. I always saw a lot of characteristics of Moses in her, and when I finally got her to study about him, she totally agreed I was right.

Things I love about Moses are that he was meek — the meekest man on the face of the earth. Yet, through that humble, quiet man, Israel was led out of Egypt. He insisted on proof that God was who He said He was…He didn’t want to be fooled or tricked. Hence, the burning bush. Rebekkah is the same way. She tests the spirits until they cry Uncle…Moses wasn’t a complete innocent either, though. Moses murdered a man and then split after hiding him in the sand. He hid away from his sin for a long time before God called Him for His purposes.

One of my favorite Moses stories is that of Miriam being prejudiced against Moses’s inter-racial marriage. Because she was basically racist, she began to disrespect Moses, and Aaron, instead of calling her out about what was motivating this nonsense, just followed along, being deceived by her arguments. Here is the story from Numbers 12:

  1  Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses because of the Cushite woman whom he had married, for he had married a Cushite woman.   2  And they said, “Has the LORD indeed spoken only through Moses? Has he not spoken through us also?” And the LORD heard it.   3  Now the man Moses was very meek, more than all people who were on the face of the earth.   4  And suddenly the LORD said to Moses and to Aaron and Miriam, “Come out, you three, to the tent of meeting.” And the three of them came out.   5  And the LORD came down in a pillar of cloud and stood at the entrance of the tent and called Aaron and Miriam, and they both came forward.   6  And he said, “Hear my words: If there is a prophet among you, I the LORD make myself known to him in a vision; I speak with him in a dream.   7  Not so with my servant Moses. He is faithful in all my house.   8  With him I speak mouth to mouth, clearly, and not in riddles, and he beholds the form of the LORD. Why then were you not afraid to speak against my servant Moses?”   9  And the anger of the LORD was kindled against them, and he departed.   10  When the cloud removed from over the tent, behold, Miriam was leprous, like snow. And Aaron turned toward Miriam, and behold, she was leprous.   11  And Aaron said to Moses, “Oh, my lord, do not punish us because we have done foolishly and have sinned.   12  Let her not be as one dead, whose flesh is half eaten away when he comes out of his mother’s womb.”   13  And Moses cried to the LORD, “O God, please heal her—please.”   14  But the LORD said to Moses, “If her father had but spit in her face, should she not be shamed seven days? Let her be shut outside the camp seven days, and after that she may be brought in again.”   15  So Miriam was shut outside the camp seven days, and the people did not set out on the march till Miriam was brought in again.   16  After that the people set out from Hazeroth, and camped in the wilderness of Paran.

Now, answer me truthfully. How would you feel if God Himself confronted those who talked about you behind your back? I’m not sure, but it seems to me that Moses might have been completely clueless about what Miriam and Aaron had been saying. I think the key here though, is that Moses was so meek, it didn’t give him any pleasure at all that Miriam was being punished for what she had said about Moses. I can’t say that I’m a fraction of a fraction meek enough not to feel some sense of justification should God defend me against someone like that. And that is probably why God doesn’t speak to me mouth to mouth….I just have a long, long ways to go before I could ever be ready to be in His presence. Yet, Moses begged for her healing, and did not move the camp until she was allowed back in. What a beautiful, sweet, kind heart. I would dearly love to have that kind of heart.

So, my point to this post is just this..who do you identify with in the bible? I’d love to know what it is that you recognize in yourself that resembles that person.

– Bird

 

 

Lessons In Humility

Posted on by Standard 50

I have a confession to make.

I haven’t written in almost two weeks for two big reasons. One is that I’ve been getting adjusted to working again and had a major

Chef and Bird – Oct 2011 – June 2012

deadline to reach, (which I did, Thank You God), and the other is more emotionally charged. It is because it seems that whenever I write that my marriage is getting better, something happens that throws me a curve ball again, and I feel like I’ve spoken too soon. I know it has nothing to do with what I’m writing, but I started feeling like I was “jinxing” the whole relationship when I write about it!

The whole reaction got me to wondering about why I seem to be such a “black or white” person. It seems to me that I’m either “all in” or “all out”. In the past, before Chef began his Midlife Crisis, a skirmish here or there never felt like it was anything more than what it was — a temporary disagreement. But these days, it seems bigger. It feels like if we don’t see eye-to-eye, I should start looking for an apartment to retreat to. It’s a new feeling to me, and I don’t like it at all. While it would be easier for me to stop talking about all that has happened in 2011 and half of 2012, I feel it would be like throwing away a lot of opportunities to learn things about my own character. And so, I’m going against my fleshly instincts to just pretend this is a Lennon Lost Year, and instead, embrace the very valuable lessons that I, and Chef, have had to learn about ourselves.

The truth of the whole matter is just that even before all of this started, Chef and I have always clashed on some things. It wasn’t World

Ignoring all of this would make all the hard work worthless. I won’t do it.

War III or anything. It was just differing opinions about a few things that neither of us are willing to concede defeat on. But even though it is pretty clear that we are coming out of the Valley of the Shadow of Darkness, nerves are exposed, and until some healing takes place, words and actions must be carefully thought out before delivery. This is something I do way better than old Chef does. :-) I told him that when it comes to decisions, I’m a chess player, and he’s a Tic-Tac-Toe player.

But, as the passage of time has begun to heal up some pretty awful wounds, I’m able to let little things bounce off of me, and he’s doing the same. And because I think satan would really, really hate it, I know I need to keep writing about all of this. It just seems to me that since I started writing and communicating with other people about my God and my marriage, he’s been attacking me on every level of my life I care about. If that isn’t a resounding affirmation I’m on the right track, I don’t know what is.

So, here I go. My marriage is most definitely on the mend. My Chef has been taking all the steps necessary to become well again. He has not slipped up in almost a whole month, and yesterday he apologized to two of our three children about how he has been behaving. A real apology that came from his own broken heart, and it wasn’t because I told him he needed to.  We’ve been spending time together, and he’s making  me laugh again. It seems like I haven’t laughed in a million years.

lol…

He still has some ways to go when it comes to my ability to completely trust him again, but I find that I can relax my guards more and more each day. Even though he and I fall on our faces a lot, we also have learned to get back up and try again. This isn’t a huge big lesson for me…I’ve spent much of my life with my face in the dirt. But for Chef, it has always been easier to walk away from a big mess he’s created and start over somewhere far, far away, instead of embracing the humility that goes along with mistakes, and begin working on fixing that mess. Yet, that is exactly what he is trying to do right now, and frankly, I’ve always been more interested in seeing him at least try to do the right thing, even if he consistently fails. It is the trying I care about more than the succeeding.

Humility is actually a very powerful thing if you think about it. What two words in this world are more powerful than “I’m sorry”? And what words mean less than “I’m sorry but …”? I’ve found in my life that most people I’ve encountered are completely willing to forgive you when true humility and repentance is shown. Everyone who has a crumb of self-awareness knows that we all mess up in this life, and when we deal with someone who has messed up, it is rather easy to forgive when that person admits to their blunders and apologizes for them, with out offering excuses or blame. Why do you think satan tries so very  hard to make us give ourselves and others excuses for our behaviors? It because that dilutes the true beauty of a real apology.

Yesterday, I watched my Chef put my theories on humility and real repentance into action with another person that he had indirectly hurt with all of this, and he got exactly the reaction I thought he would get. Forgiveness. Acceptance. Harmony. Peacefulness. It was kind of an eye-opener for the guy, and it reassured me that God knew what He was doing. He is turning even this disaster area into something that will be a witness to His Glory.

I’m happy right now. I’ve been happy for weeks now. Thank you, Lord. And thank you to all of you who sent me emails and messages making sure I was still alive and kicking out here. I never forgot about you; I just needed to see if things were really on the mend.

TTYL!!

– Bird

 

Related articles

My Thoughts On Compliments

Posted on by Standard 43
Throne of the netherlands

Throne of the netherlands (Photo credit: Wikipedia) No, thanks. I’ll just be in the kitchen with the other servers.. :)

Yesterday, I got distracted from my little diatribe with Ark by something that happened at Terry’s site.

A little background on Terry – Terry is currently a caregiver for her brother Al who is suffering from a debilitating, terminal illness that also affects his mind. She is literally cut off from the social world for the most part due to having to be with him 24/7, and as we all would, suffers from some loneliness and those crappy side-effects of basically only having yourself to talk to all day. She started her blog site about the same time as I did, and I found out yesterday that I was her very first follower. I feel like I “discovered” her…lol.

Anyways, Terry writes a lot of emotional posts and sometimes they are sad. They are very honest, and they’ve struck a chord with a lot of people. I’ve watched her site gain a pretty good following, and I personally think that her success is due in a large part to the fact that there are a lot of people out there that can relate to her pain.

So, imagine my dismay when I read her post that she is going to start writing only happy pieces. :( Turns out, someone who I’m assuming meant nothing really malicious by it, commented on one of her posts that basically, she needed to get over how she was feeling and move on… :o

It is a theory of mine that it only takes one negative comment to ruin hundreds of positive ones, and Terry’s reaction made me sad. I commented, disagreeing with her decision to paint Happy Terry Land, and then the flood gates opened, and Terry was bombarded by encouragement, support, love, understanding…every good thing one person can do for another. It made me smile, because Terry has no where else she can get those really important things right now…just here in Blogosphere.

So, Terry, being a Love Bug, writes another post, and in it she gives me huge crazy credit for helping her overcome her reaction to this comment and is super complimentary about me personally.

That is where I suddenly came to a stop. I really have no idea how to take an awesome compliment. The more beautiful the compliment, the less I know how to respond… I have no idea why I lack that social elegance, but I sincerely blow at it.

One thing I appreciate about writing, and not really communicating in person, is that the compliments can be handled without someone looking expectantly at me. I love to get compliments, but at the same time, I always have these fears that I don’t deserve these compliments, or some guilt thinking that maybe I’m somehow tricking a person who is complimenting me…not on purpose, but still… I have no problems handing them out…that part is easy because I know I’m being truthful, but I guess I am afraid that the good things people think about me might not be true ..So, I usually stick to a short Thank You, and try to divert attention to something else quickly, or point out instead something awesome about the complimenter..Or, I make a joke.

And so, obviously off my game a little last night, I responded to Terry’s high compliment by making  a joke about her reference to me “scolding” her…Her reaction was distressing..She couldn’t tell I was joking and thought she’d upset me.

I was quick to tell her I was kidding and fix the little mess, but as I drove to my husband’s work, I really started thinking about why it is so hard for me just to accept that maybe it is just a little bit true that people could really like me. I asked my husband and all he said was that I’m absolutely the sh** and deserve the compliments, but he didn’t really understand the depth of the question. Besides, he was working…bad time for a heart-to-heart.

I then asked Rebekkah, and she kind of cleared it up pretty matter-of-factly…We all have a hard time with the compliments, and we shouldn’t be all gung-ho to change that thing about us either. We all want other people to think we’re a little bit special, but unless we are die-hard in love with ourselves, that humility that goes with wondering if we really earned this kind of reaction is actually good for us. The day you start believing in your own heart that  you are actually truly awesome, is the day you start putting yourself on a throne  and begin looking down out your fellow man.

I don’t ever want to be on a throne..the fall down is hard and bitter. I’ll take a pass on that little experience. :) Jesus earned it, and I’m happy to serve Him right here on the ground!

In fact, the posts I’ve written that people have responded the most to, are in fact, things the Lord has written more than me. I really can’t take credit for much on those…I don’t need to add the seedling of pride to my already impressive lists of sins I struggle with.

I’m going to leave my inability to believe I deserve any of the high credit I’m being given these days alone.

I’ve weighed and measured this weirdness I feel about being complimented, and I find it more useful that not… So, just so you know, if my reaction is that of a goofball, it because the compliment made me feel so wonderful, I just couldn’t afford to believe it could be 100% true. :)

– Bird