Sunday, June 5, 2011

It's a story you've heard before, but it bears re-telling...

Dear Jesus,

Hello dear love, I need to write to you. I always do. Save me from my own comfort and complacency, may our constant contact truly be, constant. I love you; more than that, I need you. I need you for breath, I need you for life, I need you every day that I try to be the woman you created me to be. I am nothing before you, but all of you is strong enough for me. All of you is more than enough.

I have moved back to the great Pacific Northwest and am living with my sister in Tacoma. I have my own space here, and such beautiful company, and joyful meals and so much time spent in fun and fellowship. The hours I spend applying for jobs are just a small piece of the beautiful life I have begun here. In the face of all that God has given, I am so grateful. I am so at ease however, that I must fight to stay conscientious of my behavior and presence in the world. Most of all, I must fight to maintain prayer. I need to talk to God, often, constantly, to remain grounded in his purposes for me. I can never take a vacation from being God’s child, so I should always behave like it.

I have been thinking about humility lately. What is it but recognition of the great love and forgiveness of God in comparison with my own failings? God knows I am so far from His perfect will in everything that I attempt, yet I am not too far for His grace. He is so good! Humility is knowing the truth about myself, and accepting it, and also accepting that there is still hope for me because of God’s great mercy.

God himself was so humble that He came down, from His eternal dwelling place where He had existed with the Father from the beginning, and became man. He took on our flesh, our humanity, our own sinful imperfections and made them perfect in his most perfect nature, giving us an example of how to live and showing us carefully how to love rightly. But He went further and not only humbled Himself in the extreme in coming down to our level, but also sacrificed Himself in our flesh for our sakes, in our stead, in order to redeem us. When first we chose sin and the knowledge of evil over true love and trust, God could have abandoned us and started over, but He didn’t. Knowing full well what it would require to bring us back to Him in communion, he set events in motion to prepare for His own son, His own being to be with us, convert our hearts, and ransom our souls with his perfection, and perfect sacrifice: abandoning Himself to the divine will, as we all should do. It was necessary that it be done in this terrible way, because it was never a question of God’s forgiveness, acceptance and love for us, but rather our acceptance of God. It was necessary that this sacrifice be made so that we would realize the depths of God’s love for us, so that now knowing evil, we might be made to understand good. Knowing sin, that we might understand love, forgiveness, faithfulness and trust. Knowing pain, that we might understand redemption. That we might understand Hope.

Humility is what opens the gate. It is what breaks down the door unlocked by Christ but closed in so many of our lives so much of the time. It is that which blasts open our small isolated knowledge (the fruit of that tree) which keeps us comfortable, complacent and striving for our own good, into a huge and awesome reality: the truth about ourselves and the universe. Humility allows us to see beyond our senses because it allows us to enter the awesome mystery God. God humbled Himself so that we, in our own humility, might meet Him. He is the gate and the destination, which is opened through humility.

Thank you Love, for loving me. I am so unworthy, and in need of Your grace! You are so good.

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“Humility is like underwear. You should always have it, but no-one should see it.” –Fulton Sheen