Humility in an answered prayer.

I've been very angry as of late.  An angry depression - I'm guessing.  It's so unnatural for me.  It feels very foreign.  I am not the angry type of person, not at all.  It's robbing me of my peace - or rather as I've learned, I'm allowing it.  I've felt much like a run away train on a path of destruction.  My feelings have felt so completely out of control, and it has seemed to get worse by the day.  I've had to cut down my consumption to caffeine - for that just makes me fly into a rage.  Yes, me -- rage.  My friends are concerned, my closest, flowered.  I am in the midst of so much emotional change.  I really dislike it, but God has shown me this morning that there is something that I can do about it....   I'm praying that this is the answer.  

I've been on a pride run.  I've been overly consumed with big ole me.  God revealed to me, kind of woke me up this morning and I stumbled upon a sermon by Andrew Wommack about humility.  He defined pride like I'd never had it before.  Pride define as selfish-centerness.  

I've always felt different than other people.  Since I was a small child.  I was so shy.  Awkward even one would say - afraid of everything.  Now growing up with an overbearing Mother did not help, one that taught her children that we were to be seen and not "heard."  So I adapted into a meek little thing, with few words.  Fear as my constant companion, I often hid, in closets, under tablecloths or anywhere else I could find where people wouldn't see me.  then came the day that my Mother decided that she wanted me to model clothes for the local department store....  I was in horror!  She made me walk with books on my head, taught me to pivot and walk just like the rest of the girls on the "runway."  I was afraid of all of this, even at home.  I to this day, I don't even remember having to  perform when I was a child, it's a blank in what is the rest of my childhood.  There is a huge part of it that is just that -- blank.  It has often made me feel inferior, while other people remember their past as a kid, I just smile and wonder what mine was like.  Oh I remember some stuff, but not the vast majority of it.   I do know however that my feeling different is what led me to drinking and using drugs, for when I got my hands on my first tranquilizer and it kicked in -- all I could think about was how it made me feel, and how I wanted to feel this way, the rest of my life.  It made me feel "normal", or what I imagined normal was.  For once I felt like I fit, but in reality, I did not "feel" at all. I was numb.  I sought the next 13 years (and more) of my life chasing that feeling prior to my first treatment.  

What does this have to do with humility?  Well, today I realized or learned rather that low self-esteem is really self-centeredness   Mine was an inflated sense of self.  In reality all I thought about was myself.  How uncomfortable I was, how afraid, how this and how that.  It's the same thing that I've been doing as of late.  

Humility on the other hand, isn't concerned with who is right - it is concerned with what is right.  It is about being humble.  I've considered myself to be humble for the last say 5 years of my life -- I esteem myself to be.  I strive (per se) to be.  As a christian and a lover of Jesus -- who was the ultimate in humility, I try to let Him shine through me.  I've not been doing that as of late.  I've been concerned with not letting people get over on me.  When in reality --- so what if they do?  Is the world going to end?  No.  I've stopped believing that God handles the consequences.  Somewhere in there I've let myself become magnified... and I don't like it, one bit.  It's not only not good for me, it's not characteristic of me.  

I prayed and have been praying.  This morning I got an answer to my prayer though that sermon "Humility in Grace."  It told me so much.  We even stood and received prayer for the holy spirit to change us.  I earnestly accepted and took into my spirit that prayer.  You see, if I am to be "dead to the things of this world".... then the things of this world won't affect me.  Mr. Wommack illustrated that if you have a dead body in front of you, you can do anything to it and it won't react.  This is the way that we are supposed to be in this world. I believe that we can be this way the more we live in Jesus.... we or I can turn the other cheek and not let my ego go unchecked running rampant in my life if I just rely on Christ.  So what if I don't get "my" way?  In all reality it isn't about me, it's about Jesus in me.  I used to live like this.  

Proverbs 13:10 - By pride comes nothing but strife, but with the well advised comes wisdom. 

I no longer want strife.  I want the Lord's wisdom.  I want His Grace.  I accept the answer to my prayer.  I'm going to step out of the way.  I know that there will be trials ahead.  I will remember.  It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me ---  Gal. 2:20 (partial)      

Philippians 4: 6-9 (NKJV)

Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.  Finally brethren, whatever things are noble, whatever thing are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy –meditate on these things.  The things, which you learned, and received, and heard, and saw in me, these do, and the God of peace will be with you. 

Amen.