Adventures in the Unknown

So yesterday I wrote about heresy. I wrote it and I am not recanting any item in it. But something very unusual happened after it.

I have many friends who have been watching the rather stark transformation I have been undergoing in the last year. Some of them are intensely positive about it. Some of them are unsure of it. Some of them aren't really of an opinion either way.

So of late, the pattern has been that I would listen to somewhere around six hours of teaching from guys like Mark Driscoll, Matt Chandler, Ed Stetzer, John Piper, Ed Marcelle, Tyler Jones, Andy Stanley, Craig Groeschell and the odd sprinkling of Alistair Begg. Six hours a day, average. Some days it's just the commute and other days it is all day. I have the opportunity with my job to plug in my iPod and then just go to work on what I need to do.

And it seems that most of these days, listening to teaching that is far more orthodox and biblical than anything I have ever considered, I find a need to repent. I find these areas in many areas of my life but with primarily the same root: pride. I struggle with pride. It hurts me but I keep it up. I lose to it some days and some days, Jesus helps me win over it.

So I have begun to pray for humility. Yeah, I know, every single person I have ever known as a Christian has said doing such a thing is suicidal. And you know, I think they are right. And primarily I would say the reasoning there is that most people don't really want humility. They don't want to answer the questions of the Lord as Job did in Job 38. They don't really want God to deal with them, honestly, and to bring them face to face with their crap.

I kinda do. I wanted God to break me down because I need Him worse than anything else in my life. And I need to know what the next step is.

Now, I used to think I knew what all the steps were. I even referred to them, pridefully, as phases. Well, yesterday, the Lord more or less takes me aside and has me take a walk down memory lane. The whole way, He asks me, "What did I say?" And the whole way I am trying to point to where He was pointing, I thought. I keep telling him about the next steps and the phases and the things I would do.

And then He pricks my heart with something so completely off the charts, I broke under it. I actually listened to Him. I actually remembered just what He said, not what I presumed He meant. I came very close to calling this post "Triangulating God" because, well, that has been one of the many manifestations of my pride. To attempt to perceive God as some kind of pattern is a gross and horrible thing. And it is nothing but pride. I see that. I know that. And now, as always, I have to repent. I have to repent not just to God, but I have to repent to some people. I have to repent because my pride has taken me into a place I have never been. But I also must praise God, because He revealed this, He has changed my heart and it is Him alone that I have been blessed by.

So I used to think I knew what the next steps or phases were. Now... well... now the only thing I am sure of is that God is going to use me. When, where and how are completely up in the air. I am laying down the idea of when and where and how. I am simply seeking Him and His will. I want Him to be glorified through me.

Jesus is my God and Jesus will be glorified.