Humble yet?

1 Peter 5:6-7
“Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time. 7 Cast all your anxiety on Him because he cares for you.”

God humbles the proud or He shows favor on those who realize the enormity of the gift of grace and humble themselves before Him. Seems to me that at some point in our lives we’re going to be humbled somehow. It’s up to us to choose the when and how through the free will thing.

The choice is ours to make willingly, or the promise is that God will make it for us. Either way, we’re going to be humbled because God doesn’t like mockers.

Why should we choose to humble ourselves? So he can fulfill his promises to us. So he can lift us up in due time. So he can take all our anxiety because cares for us. It’s right there in black and white. Cast all your anxiety on Him. Cast “personal cares, family cares, cares for the present, and cares for the future, for yourselves, for others, for the church, on God. These are burdensome, and often very sinful, when they arise from unbelief and distrust, when they torture and distract the mind, unfit us for duties, and hinder our delight in the service of God.” Matthew Henry’s Concise Commentary

Why wouldn’t I want to do truly trust God? Is it that I’m so much wiser than God and can handle it better? Um, no, that certainly isn’t true. Maybe I like holding on to it because it feels so good. I think that’s it! Not.

At the end of all the excuses and empty bs, it’s because I don’t trust God and His promises. If I’m not turning everything over to Him, I’m not trusting Him. If I don’t believe that he cares for me, if I don’t believe that “in due time” I’ll be lifted up, if I don’t believe in God’s mighty hand, I can’t and won’t trust Him.

We need faith. We need faith that the words are true. We need to live our lives that the words are true.

Why? Because if doing that is humbling, not doing it is being anti-humble, it’s being proud, it’s saying that I can handle it better than God. It’s not trusting God, and not trusting God had lots of bad consequences as we know.

Where are you? Worry, worry, worry, this, that, the other thing, parents, children, job, spouse, etc., living in a poop pot, not trusting, being proud? How does that feel? Or, are you trusting, living in faith, seeing His hand, turning it over to His care, doing the next right thing (listen, He’ll tell you), waiting patiently so that He may lift you up in His time?

We have a choice and we make one. There’s no middle ground here, either we are humble or were not. At some point we’ll all be humble, but the path we choose to get there has different consequences for today and eternity.

Choose God, die to self, live humbly in joy. That’s my choice. What’s yours?

Warning, it’s disruptive to your life!