The Culture of Hope Founded on Faith
God Opposes the Proud, Gives Grace to the Humble
Today’s devotional title is found in 1 Peter 5:5. It is part of the introduction to the explanation of how important humility is in dealing with trials in our lives.
“Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time. Cast all your care upon Him, for He cares for you. Be sober and vigilant because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walks about, seeking whom he may devour. Resist him steadfastly in the faith, knowing that the same afflictions are accomplished in your brethren that are in the world. But the God of all grace, who has called us unto His eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after you have suffered a while, make you perfect, establish, strengthen, and settle you. To Him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen” (1 Pet. 5:6-7).
The past few weeks God has been answering my prayer that He show me what keeps me from serving Him whole-heartedly. He is showing me my proud and arrogant heart and that is a painful place to be. I am redeemed, forgiven, saved. But I am also a human being with the human tendency to be fooled by the niggling whispers of the devil.
This week as I read 1 Peter 5, the Lord showed me that I have been out of step with Him with pride and resentment since the beginning of our current journey a year and a half ago. After mourning Dan’s melanoma diagnosis in September 2017 we moved forward with whatever it was going to take to get Dan well again, as we had done in 2006. I can see now that I subtly began to go in my own strength because we had been down this road before. I knew what to do and little by little that seed of independence and pride grew in my heart.
I know now that I allowed resentment and the consequent beginning of bitterness to reside within me. Remember the metaphor of the frog in the water? The devil gleefully pulled me along that road in my chosen self-contentedness that left me blind to the increasing temperature of the water, i.e. distance from God’s perfect will of humble submission to Him. Last summer and fall I began to resent the continuing stresses on us in the form of additional blows to our life, including Dan’s increasingly weak and profoundly atrophied left arm. I resented the progressively prominent and stressful role I had to play in all our business of living and two escrows followed by our move six weeks ago.
Last weekend my resentment and bitterness bubbled up into an unusually emotional outburst while my wonderful husband patiently listened to, held, and prayed for me. The trigger was Dan’s neck surgery this week and my feelings of unreadiness for the full caregiver mode that I was once again facing while he recovers in a neck brace for the next six or more weeks. By the way, Tuesday evening after his surgery he had warm hands, a strong grip, and less numbness in his left arm since the bone spur that was pressing deeply into his spinal cord was no longer there. Praise God for the success of the surgery.
That morning the Lord had brought me back to 1 Peter 5 and stripped through my pride to reveal my need to walk once again in submission to His leading and peace. “Casting all your care upon Him for He cares for you” simply does not happen when pride makes us think that we can do life in our own strength. When Dan was wheeled into surgery Tuesday afternoon, I felt more unburdened than I have for the better part of a year. To yield by faith to God, in the vigilance of resisting devilish promptings to walk pridefully independent of God, requires repentance, confession, and the recognition of God’s promised forgiveness.
My pride is so deeply rooted in my heart that, like Hannah Hurnard’s “Much Afraid”, the pain of its excision initially feels like a precious thing being taken away from me. But in the light of God’s Word, it is revealed to be the filthy and foul product of sin. Only in humbly submitting to God, allowing His continuous cleansing in our hearts, and intentionally fleeing satanic suggestions can we expect God to be able to make us perfect, “establish, strengthen, and settle” us. We hinder His work in us when we fail to give Him all “glory and dominion” in every aspect of our lives, especially when we are in the middle of trials.
