In the blanks below write the two most significant statements in today’s reading assignment. Be prepared to discuss why the statements you chose were significant to you.
“Satan’s sin against God in the primal glory was a fivefold expression of the two defiant words: ‘I will,’ and every unyielded life is perpetuating the crime of Satan – Wow!
“God doesn’t need our permission to ‘mess up’ our lives – no, if His goal were to ‘mess it up,’ but if His idea of fixing it up – only with our surrender – doesn’t appeal to us, it may still feel like He just wants to ‘mess it up’”
How would you define ‘humility’ from what you have learned in today’s reading?
“Not so much putting ourselves lower as not thinking about ourselves and our position at all.”
Explain this statement from the text: Live the Christian life the same way you got it
“Repentance and accepting of God’s grace and forgiveness requires a great deal of humility. We need to nurture and sustain that humility, not check it at the door as we come in and immediately be proud to be saved.”
First Peter 5:5 says, ‘Yea, all of you be subject one to another, and be clothed with humility: for God resisteth the proud, and giveth grace to the humble.’ What attitudes and actions need to change in your life if you are to be characterized by being ‘clothed with humility’?
“I don’t think I have much problem with arrogance or control over others (I don’t like leading), but I do love my ‘self-indulgent lifestyle.’ That phrase sums up more of my time use and choices than I’d care to admit to.”
Page 76 lists several ways that various young people thought God would ‘mess up their lives’ if they surrendered to Him. List below any ways that are characteristic of you, along with any others that are true of you, but do not appear in this list.
“Basically, the last two only replace ‘sensual music’ with ‘computer games and horror.’”
Praise – “You are precious, praiseworthy, and powerful potentate.”
Repent – “Sorry I won’t stay long as Kevin is here.”
Yield – “I will try to put others first.”
Dearest Rachel –
Once again, it looks like this day’s responses is referring to a book I don’t have in front of me to compare with. All that I can do is to try and piece things together based on clues you wrote down here; an example being the two ways you thought that God might ‘mess up’ your life if you were to completely surrender to Him. Then again, you spelled out the first in a separate question (your ‘self-indulgent lifestyle,’ which I’m not sure what that would have entailed), and listed the second (although how ‘sensual music’ segues into ‘computer games and horror,’ I couldn’t begin to fathom. I assume that the former was the only item on the list referencing media, and you simply replaced it with a form that was more your taste), so I suppose that, even without the other items that might be on that list, I have the ones you thought pertained to yourself, and that’s all that matters.
I would imagine that, as Americans, we all have issues with a self-indulgent lifestyle, though. Ours is a very individualistic culture, as well as a materialistic and consumeristic one. We are encouraged almost from birth to acquire as much as we can throughout our lives; moreover, in order to make a living so that we can acquire so much, we have to encourage others to acquire the things we make in turn. As money changes hands faster and faster, there is more of it in everybody’s hands; that’s how capitalism works. None of which is meant as an excuse for it, as such, but an explanation. It makes you no different from anyone else around you, but it doesn’t make any of us right in being so.
And you’d be right to suppose from all that verbiage that I suffer (if you’d be willing to put it that way) from that same devotion to enjoying myself and my life that you claimed to; that’s why I’ve written all that to justify it (and compare ourselves to those around us – not that it works or anything). It’s probably made even worse by the fact that I don’t have the kind of guardrails I used to, either, such as answering to a superior on a regular basis, or even further along, having to work to support myself and the family, thereby affording me the time and money to be that much more indulgent, should I so choose to be.
And this is where things get dicey in terms of humility, the one virtue covered in this particular stretch of homework. Like you, I don’t even like being in control over others – the older I get, the more I learn about how little I truly know, and how little I can be trusted to be in charge. Even in a situation where I might be a ‘subject matter expert,’ to use a bit of business jargon, it still feels insufficient to be directing others where they should go and what they should do.
But when it comes to my own life, well… that’s a different story. Since there never seems to be a thundering voice from on high, I find myself following my own lights, as often as not, hoping that God will at least slam a door or a window shut if He doesn’t want me going that way. And to be honest, it’s worked out pretty well; I can’t recall having asked Him about you, back in the day, but apart from your current absence, that worked out pretty well for me (I’d like to think it did for you as well, but without you here to ask, I can’t say that with full certainty). I will ask for advice from others when it comes to truly major decisions, but I doubt that I rely as much on Him as I should… which leads to that much more self-indulgence over time, even if it’s just a matter of doing what I want to do in the absence of any prohibition. Is that a lack of humility? Maybe; I don’t really think about it when I’m making these decisions.
And with that being said, maybe I write you like this to ask you to give me a little nudge in the right direction, honey. Keep an eye on me, and wish me luck, as I’m going to need it.
Letters to Rachel 