Escaping Alcatraz

It's Sunday night, and I'm thinking about everything I didn't get done to prepare for what I have to do this week, and I'm looking at the next few weeks feeling like there is no way in the world I can get all this done, not even if it goes perfectly, and I have spent the last two days with tension-induced sinuses caused from trying to figure out how to get everything done.

And here is the God's honest truth--pride is a prison.

And I can walk into that cell, lock the door behind me, and toss the key out the window with the best of them.

Pride says I need to do it all, be it all, succeed at it all because if I don't....

People might think less of me.

It might take longer to reach the end.

Folks might think I'm a quitter, and I abhor that idea.

It means I took the easy way out, the coward's way out.

Did I mentionpride is like the Alcatraz of mental prisons?

But you know what humility says? It says...

Being human is just that. Human.

Being wise is not weakness. I can't do it all, so what is the most important?

Maybe I really are supposed to do it all. Maybe I need to find a better way through, not a way out?

Putting down something that doesnt' have to be done so I can do what has to be done well is not quitting. It's prioritizing.

The right thing to do isn't push harder but pull myself to a stop...and pray...and listen...and hear God. This road is His doing. He has the map and the list of supplies that are necessary and just a burden.

Psalm 32:8 says:

I will instruct you and teach you in teh way you should go;

I will counsel you with my loving eye on you.

Pride is concerned with how I look to others.

Humility is concerned with how closely I walk with HIm.

I'll be honest. I don't know what will stay or go or if I will just find a new way to do it all, but I can tell you what i won't do.

I won't let pride make that decision for me.

I will humble myself before the Lord that He may lift me up in HIs timing (James 4:10). I will seek His face, not others' approval. I will be still because in the stillness, He becomes clearly God (Psalm 46:10). I will trust HIm to teach me to order my days aright that I may gain a heart of wisdom (Psalm 90:12).

Instead of worrying about how I look to others, I will look to Him for peace.

I don't know what you have to do this week, but I pray in it you find Him and thus, find in Him, the way to handle all of it.

Stay on the journey.

Jerri

--Jerri L. Kelley--

--www.jerrikelley.com--