The error of abiding in pride

I wanted to share some things I’ve been learning with you guys. I’ve been learning how selfish I am. And I’m not talking about the selfish in the sense, “Oh I have so much and these people have so little,” though that is something that we should all think about. No, I’ve been hit with how selfish I am in my very nature; my time, my words, my thoughts, my prayers, my expectations. Living in community really reveals how I/we are so used to being able to do what we want and suddenly that is exposed when the person next to you also has their own idea of what they wanted to do at that moment (for instance use the internet. I usually solve this by barking repeatedly at them until they leave out of fright or disdain) This is probably very similar to when you first marry someone and find you now have two people competing over who gets to… fill in the blank (though here I’m going to show my wisdom beyond my years and say that barking will not behoove you in this particular case).

The exposing of my selfish nature in everything I do caused me to look inward at they why. This summer I’ve thought a lot about what it means to bear fruit. I thought about what would counter selfishness, or what would a person look like who was battling selfishness. Would he be patient? Kind? Loving? Gentle? Self-controlled? My conclusion was a resounding “Yes!” and that lead me to the next question, how do I bear fruit? Here I think John 15 sheds light on how to bear fruit, “I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit…” Though this passage is quite familiar, it is good to really hear what it is saying. What is my role as the branch? Surely I cannot produce the fruit, I can only bear it. In the words of Bob George, I must “maintain a dependent receiving attitude…” the same attitude that Christ displayed for 33 years (Classic Christianity). I cannot produce the Christian life; that can only come from the vine, from Christ living inside me. Last year I got burned out because I was doing everything (college ministry, my church’s worship team, my fraternity, etc) and abiding in nothing but my actions to produce the fruit.

Cornelius Plantinga, Jr. comments in his book, Not the Way It’s Supposed to Be, that pride is the root of all sin and that sin in its very definition is a disturbance of shalom, or peace. How true that was for me when I saw that my selfishness stemmed from my pride. How my selfishness did not make me gentle, did not make me patient, did not make me loving, and how that disturbs the shalom of the staff team and the summer. If I am going to be humble (if I am going to contribute to shalom), I cannot live like I am the one who just needs to do the right thing, I won’t be able to, I haven’t been able to. I need to completely abide in Christ, in his truth, and live knowing that it is him living inside me that will allow me to bear much fruit. This is just one of the many things that God has taught me this summer. Those who have been down here this summer have had a chance to discuss a lot of this in the evening discussions that Phil and I have led and I think it is important to see that we are free to simply abide in him because of his grace.

On a different note, I defeated blogspot and new videos will now be posted to the right.

-David