The Two Faces of Pride

Pride has always been that sin that completely irks me. Not that the other ones don't bother me but I think I'm just a lot more sensitive towards this particular one. I don't know why but when people start talking about how amazing they are or how much more deserving they are in comparison to others, something inside of me just feels weird (and highly annoyed..).

It's something I never really understood, why do I feel that way, and since it doesn't really affect me loving these people, I never cared too much about it. But I think in the recent years, I started to understand why pride bothers me so much. 

I do a lot of talking to people, its one of the reasons why I want to be a counselor psychologist. The conditions of people's heart matters to me and I tend to be drawn to those who are troubled or struggling with something. I've witnessed a lot of fights and people telling me what they hate about the person they're fighting with and ironically its always something that they themselves struggle with (not that they know that or are willing to acknowledge). I don't want to generalize it and be like everyone's this way but from what I've seen, most of the time the thing people hates about others is the sin that they struggle with themselves.

And with that theory, I've come to realize why pride bothers me so much. I am a really prideful person. It's weird to say because I am someone who is very hard on myself and I usually belittle myself more so than brag about how amazing I am. Which is why I named this post "The Two Faces of Pride". Pride doesn't always have to be about thinking you're better or other people are horrible compared to you. Its also you not being able to humble yourself, being falsely humble and not allowing yourself to be vulnerable. Pride is basically you putting yourself as the center of everything. 

I'll be honest, false humility is something I struggle with...a lot. For those of you who don't know what that is, its basically just you belittling yourself and thinking everyone's better/more deserving than you. It sounds like the farthest thing from pride right? I thought so too but I've come to realize that false humility is simply another form of pride. It stems from you constantly thinking about yourself and overemphasizing on what you've done wrong. My friend quoted this guy and he said "humility isn't thinking less of yourself, its thinking of yourself less."

I don't know about you guys but I also struggle with not willing to be vulnerable. It's kind of like how most guys feel like they have to be macho and tough and not show their weaknesses...for some strange reason I'm kind of like that too. Especially around those whom I have issues with, I never want them to see my weak side. Thats mainly because I don't want them to feel like they can affect me or even hurt me, that I'm stronger than they think and I don't want them to have the satisfaction of seeing me break down. Everything in that statement was about me and how I feel and how I want to appear to others, pride is just that. When you look at yourself and are so focused on you...no matter what form that is shown, its pride.

Pride can come in so many different forms, it can even appear to be humble. But God sees the heart, even if we try to mask our pride with false humility, he'll know. I think with that its always important to remember to see ourselves the way God does. Jesus didn't die just for you and not for the person you "dislike". He died for the both of you, equally. You're not any better or worse, you're loved all the same. To be truly humble is to put yourself on equal grounds and willingly with joy placing yourself below others to serve them. That doesn't mean you should treat yourself like trash but simply to think of others first and serve the way Jesus did. After all we are called to reflect his image. 

Peace

"In what ways is serving the Lord difficult for you?"

My sunday school leader asked us this question as they finished up the book of Joshua. I didn't get to go through the book with them and my knowledge of the bible is quite limited (even more so when it comes to old testament) so I can't tell you what happened with Joshua but I can share with you my own thoughts and hopefully they can bring you some encouragement. 

The most difficult thing about serving God to me is that sometimes it means you have to stand alone. Non-christians may persecute you, they might think you're crazy or blinded by religion. Sometimes even your brothers and sisters may question you. Everyone has a different calling and sometimes what God tells you may be different from what others expect of you. This can cause a lot of discouragements and disagreements and if its handled poorly, even broken relationships. It can be a rather painful situation to be in. 

But God will never leave your side. 

When you choose God, this peace and joy will overcome you. I don't know if its the same for you guys but for me I can literally feel it coming from deep inside my heart. That was when I finally realized how shallow suffering really is. I have always been someone whose emotions are strongly connected to my heart; so when I'm sad my heart would feel sad and if I was angry it would feel like a fire raging. This time I can literally feel the depth of peace and joy in my heart compared to the negative emotions. Maybe you're not crazy like me and feel emotions the way I do but God will definitely grant you with peace. Don't give in to the negative feelings and allow his peace to overcome you. 

God is worth the fight; so don't give up and don't forget you're never alone. He will always be with you, helping you and guiding you through every obstacle. All we gotta do is let him in. Keep fighting the good fight! 

Heart of Worship

I've been a part of my church's praise team for a few years now. Its sad to say but I've only come to realize that I worship very differently on stage than I do off this year.

Being the prideful perfectionist that I am, when I'm on stage I tend to focus on sounding right; getting the words right, the notes and if God forbids my leader decides to give me a solo...getting the beat right. I'm so distracted that I forget why I'm even up there to begin with; what being a part of the worship team really meant. It's not like I don't know God is the main focus of it all but somehow my subconscious made it all about me. "What do they think, how do I sound..." I'm singing but I'm not worshiping. 

When I'm alone, I don't have to worry about anything. I can sing the wrong lyrics and clap to the wrong beat, anything and it wouldn't matter (well it would but at least no one else would be there). I can focus on God and the meaning behind the lyrics that I'm singing. They become my prayers to Him (especially when they put my current thoughts/feelings into words). My heart would feel the words that I'm singing, they become real. That is when my heart is truly in a heart of worship. 

(A song that always strikes me whenever I hear it is Live Like That by Sidewalk Prophets. I don't know if you will be able to relate to it the way I have but its my prayer to God every time I sing it.)

Now that I know where I'm lacking, I'm trying to worship the way I would when I'm off stage. It feels great to worship God my way on and off stage. My leader usually sends us his set a day or two before our practice so I'm trying to learn how to digest the songs and not see it as just a song that I need to sing well. Praise songs aren't like regular songs because they're for God. I want to fully understand what I'm singing and convey that message to those sitting in the audience. Our worship should be more than just a song. I'll still try to sound the best that I can but that no longer will be my main focus. Skill matters but what is skill without the heart when it comes to worship? I'm sure he'll still love me and understand how I feel despite my mess ups.

Obligation

People have always told me how God's work should never be an obligation or even a burden.

They're right. 

We should serve God with joy in our hearts and love for what we do for his kingdom. But I can honestly say I only know about a handful of people who serves with joy. There are times where I feel burdened by the things I've done or am doing right now. How did something so joyful become a joysucking job? 

Most people point at the person and call them out for their lack of passion. Maybe its true and that person has yet to figure out how great of a job God has placed in our hands; how important of a job and amazing it is that we're even allowed to contribute a little bit of ourselves to serve his kingdom. Maybe the person still needs to understand that. But maybe, the leaders are also setting up this "you're obligated" environment for those who serve under them. 

I've seen it so often how leaders would tell their members to serve with joy and don't do it for the wrong reasons. But when some members decide that they will not take part in certain things, guilt tripping automatically comes into play. Sometimes people's walks are even questioned (sounds extreme, I know, but its happened). No matter what these members have done before or sacrificed for God, this one time "no" becomes something used to question their walks. How would that make your members serve with joy? Leaders probably justify it as "I'm encouraging them to act with God in mind" but I see members act to shut their leaders up much more often. 

I understand how difficult it is to want something to be done and people just don't want to do it. But I think there's a clear difference between encouraging and flat out manipulating. Priority, I believe is something that most people gotta figure out for themselves and we can give them a nice gentle push towards the right direction from time to time but it should never be forced. 

To those serving the Lord out there, I hope we will all remember that God deserves our time and efforts. Nothing is greater than he and doing his work should be up there on our priorities list. But that should also happen with a genuine heart. Most of us know what we need to do or what we "should" be doing but when we do these things without a sincere heart, our intentions for doing them is literally because its a "christian thing to do". 

"It is not what you do as a Christian that determines who you are; it is who you are that determines what you do." -Victory Over Darkness by Neil Anderson 

Stuck

Have you ever been in a place where you just felt stuck? Things are going wrong in life and you have no idea where to turn or who to go to. Somehow more and more things seem to be messing up and the ditch you're stuck in just gets deeper and deeper. Even for those of us who know God's there find it hard to turn to him when we're stuck in a deep ditch.

So what do you do? Are you trying to find the way out? Or are you just sitting there moping? Quite honestly I mope a lot. But I know the solutions out there. Sometimes the answer isn't obvious at all, sometimes it's not even the answer we wanted but it's there. And trust me, his answer will always be better than whatever we could think of. We just gotta trust that God will reveal it to us when the time is right.

I know I know it's a lot easier said than done. But if we hold on to our belief, if we just hold on to God during these rough times... Things will surely get better. He will never leave us, let alone when we're dying inside some dark depressed ditch. He will carry us out and heal our broken hearts. There's no greater comfort than the one from God, I guarantee that.

It's not easy to rely on God since we're taught to handle things on our own. So let's learn to hold onto God right now, together. Let the comfort of knowing he has great plans to come after this nasty storm fill us with peace. Let us trust and rely fully on God, together.

Identity in Christ

"Have you ever cried yourself to sleep at night thinking you're inadequate and wish to be somebody else?"

My church's college fellowship is studying a book called Victory Over Darkness and that was one of the questions asked by the author.

I'm sure most of us have been through a time in our lives in which we have felt worthless. Sometimes people might say hurtful things and we buy into it. Or sometimes we lie in bed thinking about all our failures and feel incompetent. Sometimes we may feel like we're not good enough, pretty enough, successful enough...etc. It just never ends. A lot of things in life can lead us to feel..well..like crap.

And the reason is? Society has it made so we believe our worth comes from what we possess in life; whether its outer beauty, achievements, material possessions, or even relationships. Society has made it so that even certain personality traits are valued more than others. Those who possess more outgoing and well spoken traits are obviously valued above those who aren't. That's just how the world is.

But is that how the world should be? Or was even created to be?

satan made it so that we would buy into these lies. It keeps nagging in the back of our heads every time we seem to lack something or when we fail at doing something until one day thats all we tend to see about ourselves. The thing that is destroying most of us inside out are lies. Nothing but complete false ideas. God would never look at you and say "You lack all these things and that's why I don't love you as much." We're more precious to him than anything in the world. He loves us despite our sin; nothing in the world can make him love us less if he can love us despite all the crap that we do. Not one sin is better than the other, therefore not one person can be more of a sinner than the other. He asked those who are rich to give up all they own to follow him. He doesn't find our riches impressive at all, all that we possess don't leave earth anyways but they do sometimes, oftentimes, get in the way of us following him. Those who wish to have other's traits; God created all of us to be different parts of the body. Each and every part need each other to function. If we were all to possess the same traits, nothing can be done, there would be only one job in the world.

We gotta start looking at ourselves with God's standards. Yes, we will mess up from time to time and it will be disappointing on our part but God forgives us and we need to too. Don't beat yourself up over the things that God has already forgiven you for.

God doesn't create junk. Each and everyone of us are his masterpieces. It's time to stop believing in lies but see ourselves for who we really are, the precious children of God.

Note to Self: Rely and Trust

"Why in the world does God think I can handle this right now?"

This thought pops into my head countless times a week. There's constantly something going wrong and so much needs to be done yet there's never enough time.

I just don't get it, he created me, he should know by now that I can't handle any of these situations.

But thats the thing, he never expected us to. (atleast not alone) Philippians 4:13 says "I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength." Our strength comes from God, we need to rely on him to get through these obstacles. We live in a broken world, things will always go wrong but the reason why we get overwhelmed and worn out isn't because we're given more than we can handle, its the fact that we keep trying to do something we were never asked to do on our own.

"Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus." - Philippians 4:6-7

Trust and rely on God with every situation you're going through, he will protect you and bring you peace.