"Humility" or "A Question I Asked Someone Else and They Asked Me To Answer It First"

I have had a few blog posts in my back pocket for a week or two. Literally. I literally wrote thoughts down and put them in my back pocket in case I was going to stumble across any free internet connection and could post them. Having said that, I am forgoing the topics I had marked down and stuffed in my khakis. All because of Pete Wilson.

If you don’t know Pete, you should. He is a pastor at a church in Nashville called Crosspoint. They were just voted the best church for Hipsters. I laughed for like 10 seconds when I read that.

If you think about it, 10 seconds is a long time. Why I laughed:

1) Someone actually took the time to figure that out.

2) By calling it cool for hipsters, it effectively makes it uncool to hipsters.

3) It was just really funny to me, so lay off me.

Anyway, I like Pete’s blog a lot. He has actual readers and whatnot who interact and stuff (Did you catch that? That was my manipulative way of telling you to comment. Elizabeth is carrying the team here).

I don’t know how Pete comes up with his blog posts. Probably doesn’t carry them around in his pocket. So I asked him. Actually, I tried to trick ask him to answer a question I ask all the time. He asked my thoughts. Frick.

So here they are. First, the question: I said, “I would love to know your thoughts on the balance of ambition, humility, and God’s plan…”

Yeah.

So why I think about it: I struggle with my humanity a lot. My sin, my shortcomings, and the overwhelming Grace that is provided to me. I think my own ambition is the cause of a lot of this. I find that my humanity is interacting in everything I do, and while that it is not necessarily a bad thing, I wonder what God thinks about it. Not the sin part, He is pretty clear about that, but more so about my ambitions and dreams.

Dreams. Ambitions. Goals. They don’t seem bad. They don’t take me away from God or go against scriptures. But I am not sure if they are from God. I am pretty sure they are my dreams and goals.

One of the reasons I wanted Pete’s opinion is he is currently editing his book that will come out shortly. I would love to write a book one day. Probably cause I have romanticized the book writing process. I also like writing. I write more than this blog suggests. I write my prayers. And some poems (I am going to be the Emily Dickenson of our day. I am not going to publish any of my poems but someone will find them under my old bed and think they are way better and deeper than they actually are).

That is not a real goal or dream, just more of a commentary on Emily Dickenson’s poems.

Sorry for the tangent.

What’s the point of me wanting to write a book? Because our culture and world needs to hear my voice? Hardly. But mostly because I feel like I have lost my voice. I know that isn’t true, but its how I feel. And I want my voice to contribute to the greater narrative that is all around me.

But it brings up other dreams and goals. I want to be a pastor again. Is that my dream or is God now calling me to something different? And if I am a pastor and God blessed us missionally and we started to make some noise in our community, is that a bad thing for me to dream of?

I guess it feels like when I acknowledge them or say they are in God’s hands it feels like false humility. I hate that. I am/was the king of that. I am trying to stop.

I guess I sum it up with what Paul writes in Phil. 2:3-11

“Don’t be selfish; don’t try to impress others. Be humble, thinking of others as better than yourselves. Don’t look out only for your own interests, but take an interest in others, too. You must have the same attitude that Christ Jesus had. Though he was God, he did not think of equality with God as something to cling to. Instead he gave up his divine privileges and he took the humble position of a slave and was born a human being. When he appeared in human form, he humbled himself in obedience to God and died a criminal’s death on a cross.

I think this is the most important passage for me and my motivations. Maybe yours too. Anyway, it’s a great passage to have in our hearts and minds as we move forward with our dreams, aspirations and various other hijinks we have hope for. So who are you trying to impress? What motivates you? In what areas are you selfish?

May we be reminded of our humanity in light of the grace, love and humility of Jesus Christ. May we serve our community and the people we get to interact with because that is exactly what Jesus would do, not because of a job description or any self-serving motivation. And may we be less guided by our own thoughts and motivations and more by the things that brings joy to the heart of our Creator.