Confessions of a fool

When I don't post for a while you can be sure I'm either on holiday or God is dealing with me. It's November and I don't live in the southern hemisphere! I haven't been on holiday.

I have a question for you: do I sound oh-so-worthy when I write, self-important and wanting you to think the very best of me in spiritual terms? (Even that question could hide a false humility!) If I do sound like that, it is most probably because I am like that.

It's not that God's finger is sharp it's just where He's pressing is sensitive and sore and you and I both want to get out from under it. He got me in a corner this morning, digging up another piece of rubble in my heart. I don't know about you, but I seem to go round and round in circles with the same problems, the same faults of the heart. Just hold still; He's drilling deeper! The drill bit is still in the same place! I'm not going round in circles; His drill bit is. There's another sweep that scrapes off another layer. It is not His sternness that provokes this in me; many peope have said to me I'm too hard on myself. It is true; I am too hard on myself. I thought I was being humble but have since realised that the person who is truely humble isn't even aware that they are. (Oh dear, failed again.) For someone like me, it is always God's kindness that drills deeper; it feels like a drill bit, but it is just His hand bringing His truth that confronts the very need of my heart. This morning He called me His brother (Hebrews 2:11) and said that there was no condemnation for those in Christ (Romans 8:1). All my struggling and striving that had built up over the last few weeks was undone in seconds and glorious freedom came, accompanied by tears.

I was so concerned with my own character and being right and walking around with utter self-contempt that my eyes were blinded to the truth. When I realised it was His character in me that was to be seen and that He had fulfilled all righteousness, then and only then was I delivered from a priggish self-hatred that masqueraded as piety.

"Determinedly take no one seriously but God, and the first person you find you have to leave severely alone as being the greatest fraud you have ever known, is yourself."

Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest, 22nd November, page 333.