No Chains on Me…

I’m an incredibly prideful person. Most of the time I don’t even realize it. I get humbled in unique ways, ways that highlight my pride even more. And its usually in the light of incredible grace, which shows me just how prideful and sinful I can be.

My girlfriend, Katie, likes to run in the mornings. I do to… when its with her But it also so happens that I pretty much fail at remembering to set good alarms the night before. I missed once, and felt horrible for doing so. I told myself I’d never do it again, always try to be early to things, set better alarms, etc. So then I forget again yesterday morning and wake up almost an hour after I was supposed to meet her. Yikes… so now I feel even worse, and its the second time it happened, AND I am going to be seeing her for church in but a few minutes. Mmm… so I know I’m going to have to try to practice meekness and humility because I screwed up again. Something I don’t get a lot of practice with.

Its the worst to mess up in front of people you know you want to make a good impression on. Which girlfriends usually are…

So I walk up to campus, feeling really badly. Get the van, get ready to pick people up for church. And then she comes in and acts like I didn’t leave her out in the cold, tells me its alright, checks to make sure I’m okay, of all things, and then moves right past my failing, as if she meant what she said when she said it was okay… Who does that? And I spent most of the rest of the morning, wondering how she could do that. I was a lot harder on myself than she was, and she was the one who had every right to.

A few of thoughts come out of this.

1) Only, what, two weeks of dating this young woman? and I’m finding she’s one of the most gracious and loving people I have ever met. In these two instances, she’s shown me a lot of grace, in the purest sense of that word. She’s let go several opportunities she could have been really angry with me over, and rightly so. As I have been told by several people who know her better than I, this is a quality woman of God.

2) I feel a lot worse at failing her than I often do when I fail God. God has had to show me infinitely more grace because of that. She has been a very tangible and somewhat painful but much needed reminder of Him lately, for which I can only give Him praise both for his grace towards me, and for Katie and her grace towards me.

3) My pride is a lot bigger than I thought. I had a harder time letting go of my failings than she did, and I know even that was because of my pride. I don’t like being humbled, and somehow its even easier to make myself feel bad for doing something wrong, rather than accepting the forgiveness given.

Relationships, I find, are some of the most wonderful things, not necessarily because of the emotional highs they can bring or the great people you can get to know, but simply because of how much God can do to humble you before another person. Its easy to cruise along in life, feeling like you’re doing fine, even like you are serving God well and wholeheartedly. You can even fake perfection around close friends, giving off the appearance of “having it together.” But somehow, when you run up against someone whom you are spending specific, intentional time to get to know for the purpose of considering and building a long-term relationship, God seems to do some unique things to make you humble before them and Him, and to make you realize how far you are from where you thought you were. I have such a long way to go…

Praise God for His grace and patience with me. And thank God for Katie, who has been His messenger of that same grace and patience.