When life is rosy, we may slide by with knowing about Jesus, with imitating him and quoting him and speaking of him. But only in the fellowship of suffering will we know Jesus. We identify with him at the point of his deepest humiliation. The cross, symbol of his greatest suffering, becomes our personal touch-point with the Lord of the universe.
~Joni Eareckson Tada
So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin. There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.
~ enigmatic truth from Romans 8
Oh beloved, it is true. Anything (read every thing) we do is destined to fail, or to be that which precipitates failure in us. This is axiomatic within our existence. And it is the fulcrum around which our soulish and religious approach to getting right with G_d has turned since the fall of mankind in the garden.
And even in those of us who have abandoned hope in ourselves and put all of our hope in the The Blessed Hope, we have this center of our tri-partite selves which still wants to mediate the relationship we now have with Him through the mind and intellect. The fabulous brains and minds He has given us, assert their ability to actually maintain some control over the entire being we are. And this is where we fail, because the flesh will always trump soul. Flesh will always get its way when the battle is only between will and desire. Always. And we know it.
And this is very good news.
What?
Yeah.
Can we see it? Law is always designed to point us to a higher authority. When we come to terms with the truth that the law of sin and death and flesh and self within us is mightily at work – and will tolerate no disobedience – we must (read absolutely must) call on a Higher Power to both deliver us from the tyranny of our selves, and to institute a new Rule in our existence.
Said simply, now when we screw up our lives, this reminds us that we could never do anything other than what we have just done. We remember that it is Him who has set us free from this former tyrant – and not we ourselves. We are re-humiliated by the fact that we are powerless to change. And this leads us to a deeper understanding and surrender to the power of G_d in our lives.
And upon this moment of cleansing humiliation, the stage is set for Him to pour even greater blessing into the more-sanctified vessel we are becoming. And as more of Him pours into us, less of us remains to foul things up in the future. This is the fruit of humiliation.
And as less of us remains, the potential for His Spirit to continue working mightily within us, and through us continues to grow. So much so, that we find humiliation and discipline welcome aspects of our lives in Him. For in the humiliation we can predict that He is simply planning to pour out even greater blessing and power and love and grace into our lives – that we might pour out this same grace on others in need.
Feeling humiliated by your failure beloved? Good. Some very good days are just ahead!
