ON BEING HUMBLED

Do you know the hardest kind of tea to drink?

Reality.

(Joke courtesy of a really awesome four-year-old.)

Life is humbling.  The more I live it, the more humbling I find it.

Life is hard.  There are a million more layers to it than I ever realized there would be.  There is so much more gray.  I used to think that things would be black and white and that there would always be a straight path to follow through something that makes sense, but that is just not how it plays out.

I know much less than I think I do.  Truly knowing something and thinking something are two different things.  I have found than I can think a lot of things and even hang my hat on some of them, but really knowing things is harder to come by.  This is good for me, because my tendency in life has been to be a bit of a know-it-all and realizing that I don't, while humbling, helps me live in much better relationship with those around me, myself and God.

I'm very much processing what I'm learning at the moment, hence the reflective, rambling blog post.  I want to be able to wrap things up neatly, but I am finding that often, things refuse to be wrapped.  Things have a way of being stubbornly raw - forsaking any notion of tidiness that I might desire.  While I do not like the mess, I am finding God in it.

God knows my heart even better than I myself know it.  He knows the good and the bad, the pure motives, as well as the selfish ones.  I want to lean more on his wisdom than my own and run away from things I think I know.

"Let no man deceive himself.  If any man among you thinks that he is wise in this age, he must become foolish, so that he may become wise.  For the wisdom of this world is foolishness before God."  1 Corinthians 3:18-19a.

When will I learn that God's thoughts are higher than mine and his ways better?  It seems to be a lesson that I am constantly repeating.  Lord, please give me grace to learn it.