The good life is the life that's been laid down. --Trip Lee, "New Dreams"
Even the act of gratitude can be a laying down of our lives -- because if you're expressing gratitude for something, you're also saying, this is not from me. I didn't do this on my own, I didn't make this. All of those I's crossed out. Thank you, thank you, thank you. It's one simple, hands-on way to lay your life down. Silence, in this instance, can be pride -- not immediately apparent pride, but pride nonetheless. Pride in its basic form -- the idea that I am responsible for any of the good in my life. It may appear benign, it may even appear as modesty -- but it is still me, seeking my own.
Even if it happened with my hands, I am not. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me; and the corollary is, I can do nothing without Christ. Without Christ I am a rusty gate, a clanging cymbal, I am nothing. Even the best I have to offer profits me nothing. Because He is Love.
Pride is a hunger; a hunger to be recognized, validated, respected. And when we seek recognition, respect, even validation, all we are able to do is feed it more pride. Pride consuming pride and multiplying the emptiness of pride.
For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it. Matthew 16:25
To heal our pride -- that is, to heal our hunger for recognition, validation, respect, love -- we cannot feed it what it is asking for. The same way that seeking to save our life only ensures its loss, seeking to fulfill our pride (or our anger, or lust, or jealousy..) only worsens the sense of lack, the big hole in our hearts. We don't need to stuff things into that hole -- we need to go to Him and say, I'm empty. I have nothing. Please, give me Yourself. Instead of clinging, we need to open our hands -- open, so that we can take His hand. His unchanging Wholeness is the only thing that can change that hole -- He will not just fill it, He will give us new hearts with no holes, rips, or tears. Because pride is quenched in His love for us. Not satisfied, not fulfilled, but quenched -- extinguished. Pride is extinguished when we take His hand and realize that we are nothing and He is everything -- we are dust. But we are also made a little lower than the angels, we are his workmanship, and we are Children of God if we say No to our pride and Yes to His easy yoke, to His righteous call and ask Him for the daily grace to walk worthy of it.
Our life is nothing, but Christ is all, so conduct yourself worthy of His righteous call. Trip Lee, "To Live is Christ"
This is the call. Reject pride, and take up the twin joys of nothingness and sonship. Reject ingratitude and open your hands to give everything back to Him in thankfulness.
What am I holding on to? What do I think is better than Him? What have I let myself cling to, even after answering His call? What ideas of myself and what I deserve am I poisoning myself with?
The Bible uses the metaphor of a road -- two gates, one narrow and one wide. I think of it also as a narrative, because narrative is extremely powerful. What narrative will I believe? More than that, which will every action of my hands and attitude of my heart prove that I *actually* believe?
Because if I believe that He is everything He says He is, there is no other narrative but thankfulness.
Thank You, thank You, thank You.
