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Two
decades ago, when I was senior counselor at a counseling service in another
city in Texas, God showed me His gracious love and patience. In the process
I discovered a subtle idol: PRIDE. This was not pride as you would ordinarily think of it terms of
boasting. I also was being strengthened and reassured of my conviction of
the concept I called
SingleVISION. My experience
was the equivalent of 2 Peter 3:18 “But
grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.”
One
morning before I went to work I saw that the muffler on our old second car
had dropped down and looked like it might break away from the exhaust. I
cautioned everyone in the family not to drive it and I went on to work.
Getting home late that evening, exhausted at the end of a grueling week of
counseling, I was greeted by one of the children. He told me that someone
had driven the old car and it was abandoned on a back road near the railroad
tracks. The front of the muffler had dropped down and broken from the
exhaust, as I had feared.
I
was more than a little upset. I was so tired that I wasn’t sure I could
even check on the car, but realizing it would not be a good idea to leave it
there, I had someone drive me to check on it and see what I could do about
it. Not being at all mechanically inclined, it angered me all the more as
my inadequacy was exposed.
When we arrived, there was the car on the side of the road, partly in the
ditch with the front of the muffler dug into the dirt.
It looked as if the
muffler would be rammed into the fuel tank if anyone tried to drive it.
The car was
positioned in such a way that I could not get under it or reach the
muffler. I stood with the car door open and my arms resting on top of the
broken down vehicle. Not yet trained in
SingleVISION, I looked
heavenward and began to scream at God. Yes, I am embarrassed to admit it, I
screamed at God and even used inappropriate expletives.
As
I yelled at God, I said, “I am giving my life away for Your people. I work
hard. I sacrifice constantly and very often receive nothing for my
efforts. I am so tired and then I have to deal with this mess. It’s
unfair.” Beating on the top of the car I continued,“ If You are speaking to
me You will have to SPEAK UP, BECAUSE I CAN’T HEAR YOU!”
Suddenly it was as if a bucket of warm oil was poured over me. It felt as
if it went gently from the top of my head to the bottom of my feet. A great
calm came upon me and I had a peace I had never before felt. Then it was as
if Father said to me, “Get in the car and drive it where I tell you.” So I
started the car and backed the muffler out of the dirt and cautiously drove
forward. With the muffler detached from the engine the sound was deafening,
but I still remained completely calm.
After about two miles I came to a muffler shop. Even though it was quite
late, the owner “just happened to be there” and took my keys to appraise the
repair of the car the next day. I went home still cocooned in Father’s love
and peace. As it turned out, with an unexpected check in the mail the next
day, the old car had a new muffler and all was well.
When I recalled how I acted before Him, “the
goodness of God led me to repentance.”
I wept with sorrow over my ugliness and renewed my mind in the Holy Spirit.
I prayed I would never again doubt His goodness in any situation no matter
how evil it may look, that I would always practice
SingleVISION.
Because it is so subtle, the thing you may not have noticed in this
accounting of my experience was my
PRIDE. Yes, pride was my
SUBTLE IDOL. It was in the
form of SELF-PITY,
but it was pride nonetheless. It is interesting that self-pity is actually
pride and we know God hates pride.
John Piper says, “The nature and depth of human pride are illuminated by
comparing boasting to self-pity.
Both are manifestations of pride.
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Boasting is the response
of pride to success. Self-pity is the response of pride to suffering.
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Boasting says, “I
deserve admiration because I have achieved so much.” Self-pity says, “I
deserve admiration because I have sacrificed so much.”
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Boasting is the voice of
pride in the heart of the strong. Self-pity is the voice of pride in the
heart of the weak.
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Boasting sounds
self-sufficient. Self-pity sounds self-sacrificing.
The
reason self-pity
does not look like
pride
is that it appears to be needy. But the need arises from a wounded ego, and
the desire of the self-pitying is not really for others to see them as
helpless, but as
heroes.
The need self-pity feels does not come from a sense of unworthiness, but
from a sense of unrecognized worthiness.
It is the response of
unapplauded pride.”
The
axe that is laid to the root of self-pity is to recognize that
we fight against God when we
do not embrace our difficult circumstances.
When we are in a situation we would prefer to be otherwise, we are not to
summon up our own resources
like heroes.
Rather, we are to become
like little children
who trust the strength of their Father and who want the joy of His presence
and His deliverance.
The Psalmist said, “Reproach hath broken my
heart; and I am full of heaviness: and I looked for some to take pity, but
there was none; and for comforters, but I found none.” When we
look for someone to pity us, we are actually looking for someone to
recognize us. We want our “worth” to be acknowledged.
When Job cried out in self-pity he
said, “Have pity upon me, have pity upon me,
O ye my friends; for the hand of God hath touched me.” But in
that same chapter when he renewed his mind and thought from an eternal
perspective, Job said, “For I know that my
redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth:
and though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I
see God.”
Giving up is inevitably receiving. This is the motto of
Christian living, the essence of
SingleVISION and the demise of self-pity. You can see this
principle at work among the godly again and again. The true servant of
God counts any opportunity to be used by God as grace. Prideful self-pity
says, “I deserve more than this.” The knowledge of our dependency on Him
rejoices in all circumstances. Paul says, “I
have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content.”
He admonishes us to “Rejoice in the Lord
always.”
In the end, the reason Jesus rebukes us for a
self-pitying spirit of sacrifice is that He aims to be glorified in all
the circumstances of our life. And the way he aims to be glorified is by
keeping Himself in the role of benefactor and keeping us in the role of
beneficiaries. He never intends for the patient and the physician to
reverse roles. Even if we are called to be missionaries, sacrificing our
lives on a foreign mission field, we remain invalids in Christ’s
sanatorium. We are still in need of a good physician. We are still
dependent on Him to do the humanly impossible in us and through us. We
may sacrifice other things to enter Christ’s hospital, but we are there
for our spiritual health, not to pay back a debt to the Doctor.
This subtle negative way that pride fills our hearts
may be detected when we are heard talking about how unfair the
circumstance is. Beware of this subtle idol. The best antidote
for this type of pride is
SingleVISION: seeing God in everything and knowing that this
circumstance also He will “work together
for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to
his purpose.”
“Dear
children, keep yourselves from idols,”
especially
the subtle
idol of
our
PRIDE
wrapped up in
SELF-PITY.
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