“Knowing God without knowing our own wretchedness makes for pride.
Knowing our own wretchedness without knowing God makes for despair.
Knowing Jesus Christ strikes the balance because He shows us both God and our own wretchedness. Jesus is a God whom we can approach without pride and before whom we can humble ourselves without despair.”
~Blaise Pascal~
This was a devotional reading for June 7th, and since that day it has kept coming back to me, and I have realized that for my whole life I grew up in a Christian home and I “knew” God—I think I can truthfully say that I do know God, however small a knowing it may be. I also know I’m not perfect and I have my faults, but on the whole, I’m probably what people would call “good”. Even now, people are always calling me sweet and adorable (and I’m like, “if you only knew me at home…”), but I guess part of me believes it.
I have never wondered if God cares about me; I know He does. For you see, I am a creative person. I loved making models and little projects and things growing up. I know that God is a Creator too, and since I know the interest I take in my creations, I know that God takes an interest in me. Can you imagine making a miniature model of a gorgeous dollhouse—one of those that is basically the exact replica of the original building? (I’ve heard of somebody doing that for Buckingham Palace!)—and then carefully decorating and furnishing it, and finally, making dolls to live in it—dolls that are autonomous and able to really live in it and think and make their own decisions and have their own life, and even love me back? OH MY!!! I would be so captivated I would not be able to stop watching if that were something I could make, and since that’s basically what God did then how could He not care about me, His creature?!
But one thing the above quote made me realize was that although I have known God my whole life, I have always struggled with knowing my own wretchedness. I would hear stories of people converting to Christ after they had been prostrated at the realization of how sinful they were, and how they were like a worm in their own sight and God’s. I would hear this and think, “I don’t get it. I know I’m sinful, but why can’t I see my sin as something so horrible?”
One of my problems is a personality weakness: since I like perfection of detail, I am terrified of making mistakes, and that prevents me from attempting new things. For years I was too scared to try things. I carefully put up protecting walls of good habits, good manners, nice clothing and hair styles (based upon tried and true styles of past eras, of course!), and reading of good, old books. I actually took pride in the fact that I didn’t get “giggly” over any guys—wouldn’t give thoughts of them the time of day—and therefore I didn’t make any stupid mistakes, especially in the realm of relationships.
Relationships. That is probably the area common to all people that I am most ignorant in. Sure, I have a family, sisters, but I boss them around, and it’s hard to sympathize with people you’re always talking at instead of with. Since we have no brothers I definitely didn’t know how to talk to guys, so I didn’t. Instead I read lots of books on the subject and wrote up quite a list of what my future husband ought to be. I was all set. The problem was, I still couldn’t talk to them, and none met the requirements of my nice long list.
I remember one of the first conversations I had with a young man, who was still quite a bit older than I. It was at a reception. The conversation went amazingly smoothly until I said something with a gesture and my plate contents landed on the floor. I stood there dumbly while the very nice young gentleman actually picked it all up for me. Oops. Thankfully conversation continued on much as before, and somehow I didn’t feel mortified. I think he somehow kept me at ease. That was one occasion that made me realize that mistakes aren’t always mortifying, and, depending on how you handle them, they can turn funny.
I think God has a lot of work on me to do. Through the years I have been a pendulum, and as a newly discovered author so eloquently puts it, “any pendulum worth its weight…finds it difficult to swing from one extreme position and settle directly in the middle, without first hurtling all the way to the opposite extreme.” (Guy Deutscher) I went from being very in control of myself and my environment to not being able to get up early in the morning and losing sight of all goals and being pulled to and fro by that tyrant The Urgent. In the meantime, I was beginning to enjoy life a little more, in different ways…mainly the kind you find when you learn to “let go”. Things like not getting mad when the schedule gets interrupted, or staying up really late to watch a movie.
But still, my own wretchedness? Didn’t see it. I read more books, went travelling, met more people, got various jobs, gained in life experience.
The world began changing drastically and as I read news articles I had to wrestle with things I never even wanted to think about, much less have them talked about in the press. Why do the minorities get so much attention that they sway the opinion of the entire nation? Pendulums again.
More time passed. I got too busy to read books, I tried to take an online course and failed to complete it within my time goal. WHAT? This is not me. I began to feel a failure. I have no local friends, I can’t keep a schedule anymore, don’t practice music anymore unless I have to and sometimes not even then—and then it comes back to slap me because music is my vocation now! I’m just now thinking of career options, and I only just got my first car a couple of months ago…I’m so late at everything.
But, I have always been good at maps, and this past weekend I drove on my first road trip with my mom and sister. I thought we would find everything just fine! But nope: Tension thickened the air more than once as communications between driver and navigator deteriorated. Failure again.
And that’s when the quote would keep coming back: “Knowing God without knowing our own wretchedness makes for pride.” I have been proud my whole life. Proud of my good upbringing, proud of my walls that protect me from making stupid mistakes, proud that I knew the Bible better than most people, proud that I never liked a guy and had my heart broken over it, proud that we eat healthy and make all our meals from scratch…and the list could go on. God help me.
A week or so ago I was mad and decided to throw rocks at a fence post until I hit it. It took probably 15 tries or more. Who am I kidding? I’m not better than anyone else. I am such a slow learner. If anything I’ve hurt rather than protected myself all these years. All those walls I put up…do I even know what it is to love someone—to really love them like God wants me to? But God is merciful and He is a great Redeemer, taking my mistakes anyway and using them in what He is doing—and whatever He is doing is going to be epic! I believe that!
To close, I want to apologize. If you know me, if I have ever wounded you because of my own pride, please forgive me.
A topic for another post is the “desert” I’ve been in. I thought I was out of it, but now it seems God just had another lesson to teach me before I’m fit to leave it, and believe me, my eyes are only just opened to this pride/wretchedness business. I’m sure it’ll take a few more months or years to sink in completely.
(Written June 28)
Threads of Truth: 