Humility the Hard Way

God must look down on me from Heaven and say, "Okay, bud. We can do this the easy way or the hard way. You can trust me and die to yourself and stop relying on yourself and fall on my grace, or we can go through all this craziness again. Your call." Well, the past couple of weeks my call has been the hard way. Since my last post I have been struggling with more suicidal thoughts. One day this week I was walking around town between work and school and I just crossed the street without looking. It wasn't because I wasn't thinking. I was definitely thinking just those thoughts were not good. Also, I was sitting in the library studying and the thought just came into my mind to scratch my arm. It wasn't itching. I just wanted to scratch myself. I just kept scratching and scratching. This went on for at least 30 or 40 minutes. I scratched through the first layer of skin on my arm. I still have a scab. It is healing though. Which to me is symbolic of how I've been living lately. When you scratch at the flesh and give it what it wants there are repercussions. We leave scars and scabs. But there is one who heals those scabs. Christ took on our scars and scabs of sin on the cross. That is how our flesh is healed. His blood is the ointment that washes our scars away. Paul in Philippians 2 says, "5 Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, 6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross." Hebrews 12 encourages us not to grow weary by stating, "3 Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted. 4 In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood." Christ shed his blood. He endured all the wrath meant for those who he had predestined to save! Think about that! How trivial our trials seem compared to that. We have it easy. God lets us go it on our own for a period of time so we can learn where that leads. For me it leads to suicidal thoughts, anxiety, self-mutilation, and despair. But there is hope. I was in the pit of despair. I hit rock bottom and had to look up. That is grace! My pit had a bottom! Hell doesn't have a bottom! Praise the Lord! Psalm 40:2 states this so well, "He drew me up from the pit of destruction, out of the miry bog, and set my feet upon a rock, making my steps secure." My steps are secure on the rock of salvation-Jesus Christ!