a humbling state of humiliation

Have you ever gone through a period of time in your life where you can't seem to do anything right? Where you seem to all of a sudden be falling short of all the standards or guidelines you have steadfastly set in front of yourself and always prided yourself on keeping? And, no matter what you tried, you continually failed, doing the very things you swore you'd never do - those very things you looked down at others for doing. What a humbling place - and what a humiliating place. But oh, how necessary because, once we realize that we are incapable of standing firm on our own - once we truly realize that we just as easily fall into sin as the next person - then, and only then, can we truly start to understand and experience Grace.

I am in the middle of that place and learning about Grace as never before. Let me explain. My entire life I have been the model 'good Christian girl.' Meaning that I managed to keep my 'filthy rags' hidden very well under a thin veneer of abstaining from the obvious sinful actions of most typical teenagers. This brought me to always assume that I was above those actions - building an almost indetectable pride within me. A puritanical pride that said to myself that God was a little bit happier with me because I could follow my own set of structured rules perfectly.

Now this set of structured rules was carefully crafted to make me look grand. As long as I kept these specific standards upheld in my life, I was ok - I was pleasing to God. Because I am in constant fear of disappointing God and people in my life, it is easier for me to first define exactly what their expectations are, and then legalistically live up to them. However, God doesn't work like that.

The days started coming when I began to bend my rigid lines...and then even further to completely breaking them! I would look back in horror at a freshly broken line - incredulous that I had actually broken those boundaries that I had always carefully set before myself. Then I'd feel like I couldn't pray - like I couldn't connect with God as I had before that line was broken in my life. As if breaking an obvious rule made God love me less. This happened over and over again - and I have been shocking myself and disappointing myself and feeling like God was horribly shocked and disappointed in my actions. After all, I knew better, didn't I? How could I actually be letting myself do the things I had always been cautioned against and had laughed at the possibilty of me doing?

I believe that God has allowed me to fail my structured set of rules in my head in order to point out that (1) I am just as sinful as anyone else, (2) I am incapable of keeping myself on track, and (3) no matter what I do, I cannot either impress God or disappoint Him. He made me - He knows me better than I know myself - and loves me unconditionally yesterday, today and forever - no matter what I do. Ever. He sees what I am capable of with regards to sin - and He delights in the potential He has given me to glorify Him in the midst of my sinfulness.

I have sunk to a new low in my eyes. And by this I have come to a new realization of what I am in God's eyes - righteous. Not by anything I do or don't do, but by His Grace. Then I went home on the weekend and my mother gave me a book to read - without knowing how directly it applied to my current situation. In The Grip Of Grace by Max Lucado. Then I read in devotions Sunday night to "Let circumstances take you where they will, but keep drawing on the grace of God in whatever condition you may find yourself. One of the greatest proofs that you are drawing on the grace of God is that you can be totally humiliated before others without displaying even the slightest trace of anything but His grace." Not that I must keep on sinning to further prove His Grace (Rom 6:1,2) - but that as I sin, realize it, and am humiliated - that then points to God and His Grace. "I must be even more careful to put into action God's saving work in my life, obeying God with deep reverence and fear. For God is working in me, giving me the desire to obey Him and the power to do what pleases Him." (Phil 2:12,13)