Prideful Eyes

When I wrote “In Defense of the Light,” I wrote it as much for me as anyone else. I find that I must defend the Light to myself far more than to any other person. And lately, the Light in and over my life has been consistently attacked—by me.

It doesn’t take much to make me spin out. All I have to do is take a look around me with the eyes of my flesh and suddenly I’m in crisis. My prideful eyes see my life as either superior to other lives, or inferior to them, and the moment I indulge either perspective, I’m riding a barrel over the falls.

This last go-round involved the pride of inferiority, born of my belief that I should or even COULD be better than I am. In that pride, I resist my story—the reality of where I’ve truly been. I indulged a little despair that my journey to God was filled with so much hatred and so little love, and down I went.

If I had gone to God with it all and thrown it at His feet, I might have avoided the spiral of doom. But that’s not my story either. And if I were truly a problem that God couldn’t handle, He’d have dreamed a different me. Seems a simple enough truth, but every part of me kicks at it. “Could You not have dreamed a little higher, a little smarter, a little less ridiculous, a little classier, a little more elegant, God?”

[No] for God selected (deliberately chose) what in the world is foolish to put the wise to shame, and what the world calls weak to put the strong to shame.
1 Cor. 1:27 AMP

The Lord has to bring me back to this verse over and over and over again. He chose the weak and foolish, and He chose me. I am weak and foolish. Being laughed at because you’ve shown yourself to be foolish is a very painful thing. One of the most powerful and effective social weapons is mockery. We learn that as children, no?

I remember incorrectly pronouncing the word “political” when I was in 4^th grade. I’d read the word many times, but I couldn’t recall hearing it, so I just went with the rules of phonics and pronounced it “polly-tickle.” I can still recall the sound of 23 kids laughing loudly at my mistake. It was awful. And that’s just a silly, lighthearted example from my life, not one of the darker, scarring incidents when I wished I had a time machine (or a gun). My pride is such that I’d rather be wicked than foolish. I’d rather betray than be the fool who trusted. I’d rather be calculating than the fool who leaps and misses. I’d rather be reserved and safe than the fool whose heart is exposed for all to see.

As I was wrestling with this, the Holy Spirit brought back to me one of my earliest revelations upon being born again. I’d just had a truly visceral encounter with God and had finally seen how He viewed my sinful self. I knew beyond doubt that I deserved hell and eternal separation from Him, but He saved me instead. In the days that followed, I glimpsed the massive scope of who God really is and what He has in motion. And I couldn’t believe the massive mercy and generosity that let me be the last rung on that ladder. It wasn’t humility that powered my gratitude and excitement. No, it was the flash of comprehension – God’s personal gift to me – that let me take in just how great the gift, how huge the adventure, and how incomprehensible was the joy that awaited me on the last, lowest rung of HIS ladder.

That’s the wonderful reality of the second half of my story, and it’s only possible because of the first. Oh God, give me grace to get it.

And God also selected (deliberately chose) what in the world is lowborn and insignificant and branded and treated with contempt, even the things that are nothing, that He might depose and bring to nothing the things that are, 

 So that no mortal man should [have pretense for glorying and] boast in the presence of God.
1 Corinthians 1:28-29 AMP