1 Peter 5:5-10 – Centered
“ ‘God opposes the proud but shows favor to the humble.’ Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time. Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you. Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that the family of believers throughout the world is undergoing the same kind of sufferings. And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast.”
1 Peter 5:5-10 (NIV)
Humility is difficult to practice sincerely. But staying centered gives us the right perspective.
Such a long passage this time. The NIV translation, too – crazy. To be completely honest, I’ve been fairly bitter with the Lord lately. It’s only natural – we’re broken people, with sinful pride that gets to us one way or another. My weakness is what forces me to rely on God in the first place, and He’s certainly not surprised when that weakness of spirit shows itself in the form of lashing out in frustration, and weariness. I tried writing over the last few days, but I found it difficult. There was too much bitterness in my heart, that whatever I wrote wouldn’t have been very genuine.
I have a draft saved on a series of posts that I planned to write on the concept of dispassion, beginning with verses 8-9 of this passage. I had just gotten into a relationship, and I started to understand the dangers of allowing my emotions to take hold of my own outlook on my life – and my plans for the future. Ironically, I never finished that series – or that post, for that matter – as I began to commit to those plans. Now, understand that I was still very much making an effort to make sure that everything I did was centered around God. As far as I understood it at the time, I was being very careful about placing God at the center of everything that it seemed like He was giving me for the future. What I missed out on was that, even when I tried to put God in everything, I think I was still doing it for myself. As it appeared to me, when you put God in different parts of your life, He blesses those things. So if I included Him in this part of my life, He would bless it. And there’s nothing wrong with that. But at the end of the day, the reasons that I had for doing so weren’t quite right. I was only trying to center things around God so that He would bless them, and I could enjoy them. Had I understood that anything can be taken from me in an instant, I would have been able to get it through to myself that my priorities were messed up. I should have been centering my life around God not because of how He can bless it, but because of how it can give Him glory. He might bless my life, but it’s still ultimately and permanently His. If I had genuinely remained dispassionate, and learned to look past my emotions, perhaps I wouldn’t have been blinded by them, and I might have realized that.
Humility can be tricky, even for those that have a desire to serve others, strangely enough. Some of us enjoy to serve others and show kindness, but mostly just because we’re addicted to the way that it makes us feel. Respected, and admired. I care a lot about respect – too much. I unfortunately have a deep desire to be validated by others' perception of me; I want them to hold me in high regard, because for whatever reason, my respect for myself is impacted by it. It's a weird combination of self-beliefs. I'm mostly aware of how incredibly wretched my flesh is, yet at the same time, I have such a fragile pride in myself. It's true, what they say: the closer you get to God, the more you realize how inconceivably perfect He is, but also the more you realize how hopelessly broken you are on your own.
Self-deprecation is frowned upon a lot, since general mental health looks a lot different than it used to. But I think that there's such thing as a healthy amount. We shouldn't use it to punish ourselves, but instead to remind ourselves that the longer we try to stand on our own, the more chances we give the enemy to knock us down – "let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed, lest he fall" (1 Cor. 10:12). Times of weakness and tragedy are tipping points, they can cause us to grow at a rate we've never experience before, or destroy ourselves in ways we didn't think we were capable of. And either one of those processes can start at anytime.
Life is a balancing act. Staying in a constant state of happiness just isn't possible. Sin eliminates that possibility. So maybe trying to stay at the top forever is pointless. Trying just to make our highs higher will just be creating more distance for the fall. Maybe staying closer to the center is what maturing looks like. Does that lead to regret?
I'm not sure. I don't have all the answers – but I trust that they'll be revealed to me when they need to be.
"Teach me what it looks like to remain humble. In highs and lows, keep my heart and mind at the center."