Recently Ps Phil Strong asked ZION if we ‘make our focus the problem or the promise’ when we cross into and occupy our promise. I was struck, not only with where I let my focus sit, but if I really, truly complete my journey, or if I’m too scared to cross over into it.
No follower of Christ wakes up in the morning and says to themselves, ‘how can I avoid God’s blessing for me today?’ If anything, most of us will either not even think about how God has promised to bless us, or will wonder when God plans on giving us this thing He has promised.
Crossing into God’s promise is simple, it’s usually about taking a certain step that God has directed you to take. The tripping point is that while the path God sends us down is simple, it’s not generally easy. Which is perhaps why Ps Phil also shared with us that often God’s promise will lead us into humility and that ‘the pathway to humility often walks us through the field of humiliation’.
I don’t know about you, but personally, I don’t feel like skipping through the field of humiliation, I’d much rather avoid humiliation entirely, the issue is, I can’t access the full measure of my promise if I don’t have the courage to walk the path.
When I consider humiliation visions of being surrounded by people who are laughing and pointing at me tend to bounce into my head. And while that outcome is certainly possible when walking the path God has set out before us, the experience of humility is often internal.
After speaking with two incredibly humble, intelligent, and accomplished men at my church about our journeys one thing became clear, while being humbled can conjure feelings of shame and embarrassment, each of our experiences showed that being humbled was ultimately about our identity. Each of us experienced a time when what we considered a foundational part of our identity was stripped away, and we came to realise that the identity we had placed so much trust and energy into, the identity that helped us feel special and secure, could be stripped away in a heartbeat.
The thing with being led by God through humility is that when everything is stripped away there is one thing that remains, the truth that we belong to God and that ultimately our identity is found in Him.
It seems to me that the groundwork for reaching our promise is recognising the part that God plays in it. God may ask us to take certain steps, but He doesn’t actually require us to do anything in order to see that promise come to completion.
It can be uncomfortable recognising that ultimately we have no control beyond what God allows, and yet, as we are humbled that same discomfort can grow into an appreciation for the blessing God places upon us each time we cross over.
Karla