Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time. (I Peter 5:6)
“Meaningless!
Meaningless!” says the Teacher. “Utterly meaningless!
Everything is meaningless.” (Ecclesiastes
1:2)
Last
night, I read an account of a person in ministry whose wife “suddenly” unloaded
on him all of her pain at his neglecting his family in the course of his
success. He was devastated and angry, and more so when someone pulled the two
of them aside and pointed out a parallel between their situation and that of a well-known
figure in Christian ministry. I didn’t reach any part where everything was made
all better. For all I know, it hasn’t been.
Another
speaker I heard the day before told about psychological studies that show that
it takes very little to get a person to do what they know to be wrong. And
there was a movie made in 1997 in which Keanu Reeves played the part of a
lawyer hired into a firm that he discovers is run by the devil. Toward the end
of the movie (as I recall) he is told to do something unethical and declines. He walks away sure that he’s done the right thing, but the devil (played
by Al Pacino) smiles because he’s won – Reeve’s character is proud of having “beat
the devil.” Of course, other people interpret the story other ways.
What
all of these have in common is our self-assurance that we’re doing a pretty
good job when, in fact, we’re fooling ourselves. We may not be doing as good a
job as we thought, or doing it for the wrong reasons, or failing in other areas
without realizing it. And when others point out our failings or errors, we need
to take them and the failures to God. Are they right? Not every accusation is.
If
they are right, how do we fix what’s broken, learn to improve, and seek His grace?
And how do we do it in love?
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