Tag: humility

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Walking in Uprightness

Walking in honesty, humility, integrity, and righteousness puts us in God's favor.
Read: Proverbs 11:1–6

Imagine you are traveling across the country on a train. The train sways while the rumble of wheels along the track fills your ears. After the train attendant checks your ticket, you head to the observation car. While you walk, you check your balance, hands reaching for seat backs and handrails. You step one foot in front of the other, weighing each step in your mind, eyeing potential risks. Your caution pays off! You did not fall down or onto anyone else, and you reach a swivel seat and fall into its comfort to enjoy the scenery.

To walk in uprightness with God is an everyday choice in a world where the train sways beneath our feet. When stepping forward on God’s path, we choose how we act, with honesty or dishonesty, with pride or humility, with integrity or duplicity, with righteousness or unrighteousness—and each choice has a consequence.

When pairing the first attribute in these pairs with trust in God (Proverbs 3:5-6), we find it possible to step forward in faith; this combination fortifies our decisions to live like Christ. God uses honesty, for example, to build trust between people (Genesis 30:33) and humility to form community (Philippians 2:3–4). As well, he establishes a plan for us when we act in integrity (1 Kings 9:4–5) and produces strength in suffering when we act in righteousness (Job 17:9).

Best of all, walking in honesty, humility, integrity, and righteousness puts us in God’s favor. No, he does not stop the sway of the train, but he does reward us in many ways for our obedience. By trusting in him and aligning our steps with his way, we walk the path toward eternal life—and, in the meantime, we can fall into the comfort of God’s arms when the sway of the train threatens to knock us down.

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Learning From Rejections

One of the best rejections I’ve ever received is, “Your piece made it to the penultimate round. Unfortunately, we will not be publishing it.”

Sadly, not all rejections offer a touch of encouragement, but I believe we can learn from them anyway. For instance, rejections teach us the humility to lean into our critique groupers’ suggestions, rewriting a rejected piece provides a lesson in perseverance, and praying for our writing helps us to rely on God’s plan.

For each lesson learned, we can lean into God’s plan with an attitude that marks us as writers who follow God. Yes, when someone declines our precious words, we feel the sting. Nevertheless, every turned-down piece helps us to grow both as writers and as God’s people.

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Devoted to Love

Romans 12:10 (ESV)—Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves.

Travel. It can bring out the happy, carefree us; it can bring out the hands-on-hips, ready-for-a-showdown us.

And how do I know that?

Just yesterday, my hubby and I hopped into the car for a two-hour drive to watch the eclipse. About halfway there, we stopped at a gas station for snacks at my request, much to the chagrin of my hubby, who very much wanted to get to our destination. Still, he filled the tank while I went inside for a leisurely browse of the snacks. A bit too leisurely if I correctly read my hubby’s facial expression when he came inside to collect me. Even so, I argued a bit and continued my browsing, albeit with my gaze moving faster over the selection of goodies.

Immediately, in the car, God prodded me: Apologize. He said I should have swallowed my wants (not quite as tasty as my snacks), paid for the drinks in my hand, and left the store without looking further. He finished with, “Honor one another above yourselves.”

Yep, one of those memory verses I’d tucked away, a verse about love that applies to every relationship, not just spousal ones. This characteristic of Christ allows us to be humble, to sacrifice our selfishness for the wants of another. Humility helps us to push aside our worldly feelings and love with zeal, joy, and faith. And we can sacrifice these human faults to live as Christ did because we have the peace of knowing Christ overcame the world (John 16:33).

On this day, I sinned. But I chose to turn from the darkness and walk in the light (1 John 1:7), to apologize for my behavior of not honoring another above myself. My hubby forgave me—and for good measure, we sealed the deal with a kiss.