PRIDE OR SERVICE

Our beautiful Layla...hiding her face..I felt like doing this...

This last week has been "tough"...I have had to take a very long look at myself, my motivation and my work. I have always worked in projects, community or something "good" for others. This last week God has been refining me - we normally call it "refining fire"...I can tell you the heat was put to maximum...we have been taught that the "hotter the fire" the more perfect the result...my word....it was difficult and hard.

I had to examine myself and why I do what I do. While pondering this and wondering about all the blessings and failures I came to realise that I had to change a lot about me. The main one being my "prideful" attitude. I love to talk about what I do, the projects I am involved in and the blessings we have received. I talk to anyone I meet taking every opportunity and I have justified this in my own mind that when I speak to them about what "I" do I ask them if there is anything they can do to help us (donations, time, etc) - so justifying my "prideful conversation". God guided me to the scripture below..I have quoted it in two different translations:

Matthew 6: 3 & 4

NIV - 3 But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, 4 so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.

Message - 2-4"When you do something for someone else, don't call attention to yourself. You've seen them in action, I'm sure—'playactors' I call them— treating prayer meeting and street corner alike as a stage, acting compassionate as long as someone is watching, playing to the crowds. They get applause, true, but that's all they get. When you help someone out, don't think about how it looks. Just do it—quietly and unobtrusively. That is the way your God, who conceived you in love, working behind the scenes, helps you out."

I spoke to a very trusted spiritual friend and explained to her what was going on in my mind and heart and told her that I look at her and her peaceful attitude and generous heart and I would love to be more like her and less like me...and she told me that she struggles with exactly the same. Did this make me feel better...no...this was my journey and if we share a path then I know that at least I am not alone in this and I felt comforted and not as condemned as I had been feeling.

I know I am loved unconditionally, I am righteous in Christ, I just need to take care that the God I am serving is my God, Lord and Savior and not my work. 

I thank God that He is constantly REFINING me .... I thank God that He has opened my eyes and ears to His teaching. I thank God that He has made me brave enough to share this with folk who I have been "boastful" to....I thank God that I am forgiven and loved by Him. I ask you for forgiveness if I have been boastful instead of humble.

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