humility.

"Humility - Honestly assessing ourselves in light of God's holiness and our sinfulness." - C.J. Mahaney

One of the places I frequently visit, to teach myself to be humble is Isaiah 6:1-5, where I see one of the most clear pictures of God's holiness and my sinfulness.

"In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him stood the seraphim. Each had six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his fee, and with two he flew. And one called to another and said: "Holy, Holy, Holy is the LORD of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!" And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke. And I said: "Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!" - Isaiah 6:1-5

Woe is me!

I do not say those words nearly enough.

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a bigger picture.

"The Lord works from the inside out. The world works from the outside in. The world would take people out of the slums. Christ takes the slums out of people, and then they take themselves out of the slums. The world would mold men by changing their environment. Christ changes men, who then change their environment. The world would shape human behavior, but Christ can change human nature."

Ezra Taft Benson

Love the poor, the orphan, the widow, the starving, the broken, the wounded, the neighbor, but not so as to change or influence merely their circumstances and behavior: labor in prayerful love for Christ to change the heart.

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all or nothing.

"You cannot play with the animal in you without becoming wholly animal, play with falsehood without forfeiting your right to truth, play with cruelty without losing your sense of mind. He who wants to keep his garden tidy doesn't reserve a plot for weeds."

Dag Hammerskjold

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be patient. fight on.

Some day, in the years to come, you will be wrestling with the great temptation, or trembling under the great sorrow of your life. But the real struggle is here, now...Now it is being decided whether, in the day of your supreme sorrow or temptation, you shall miserably fail or gloriously conquer. Character cannot be made except by a steady, long continued process.

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this i call to mind

"my soul is bereft of peace;

i have forgotten what happiness is;

so i say, 'my endurance has perished;

so has my hope from the LORD.'

remember my affliction

and my wanderings,

the wormwood and the gall!

my soul continually remembers it

and is bowed down within me.

but this i call to mind,

and therefore i have hope:

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