Did you know that most people who choke to death do so in the bathroom... alone? (I presume that most of these cases involved men since no women I know dare to enter this room without a herd or two behind them.) Recently, I read of a near-death experience of a man who got a piece of a pork chop lodged in his throat. Guess where he was heading? Luckily, he passed out on his way there, alerting others to come to his rescue.
What is it about this room that draws us to it when we're frantically gasping for air? Do we want our last inhales to be of the fresh and invigorating scents that come from the urinal cakes? Or maybe it's the hand dryers that make our flesh look like ocean waves. Maybe we just want to die in the room where everything just seems so right with the world, where the only concern is if it will flush.
Okay, so I've taken that as far as it can go (probably a little too far, right?). Let's be real. No one wants to die in a bathroom. Out of all the places in the world this particular place would be down at the bottom (no pun intended). This just happens to be the place most choking victims land, because no matter where you are, you usually know where it is. It's one of the few places you can find quickly and hide in your most vulnerable state. No one wants to pee their pants in public or lose their life to a pork chop.
So why do we take our pork chops to the bathroom? In a word, it's pride. And a constant refusal to swallow it can cause us to walk by the only things that can save our lives. It's pride that causes us to try to save ourselves instead of asking for help. Sure, we've been taught that if no one else is around you can find a table or chair to assist in giving yourself the Heimlich Maneuver, but we won't be finding either of these in the lavatory. In fact, if I ever walked into a bathroom and saw a table and chair set up I probably would be letting the local authorities know.
Now, if pride can cause us to choose death over a back hug, what else is it capable of doing?
Most of us know that pride is what caused Satan's fall from Chief Angel to...well... Satan. But I think we've walked away from that story with a belief that pride is Satan's sin, or that it's something that only really evil people do, and so we've failed to recognize our own pride. Pride is bigger and more far reaching than trying to overtake God's throne.
I remember like it was yesterday, sitting in my Bible school class with around a hundred other students getting ready to write down an answer to a question that the instructor had given us. His question? "What is the definition of humility?" In previous weeks we had learned that to best understand and define pride you have to understand and be able to define humility. He said that if any one of us would get it right we would get some percentage points toward our final grade for the class.
We were all thinking the same thing. "Really, Teach, this is all you got? We're second-year students, and we all knew this answer when we were in our second year of life." You could almost hear the air pumping into our already inflated heads. The outcome? Not one person got the answer right. We all fell over, and it wasn't from the Spirit of God. It was from the sheer force of the Category 3 winds that leaked out of our egos. The air of humility was really swirling in the room that morning. I mean, we had just gotten prideful defining the word opposite of pride. (And we thought the devil was foolish.) His answer? "Humility is withdrawing from our way and yielding to God's way." In other words, pride is more expansive than we thought. Whenever we refuse to step back from our way rather than doing it God's way, pride is present.
It's important to look at this issue through the right set of lenses. God isn't trying to weigh us down with rules and regulations, quite the opposite. Instead, He is saying, "I've given you certain gifts and talents to accomplish my will not yours. I created you to give me the glory through all that I put in you, so that others will see that I am good and that I want a personal relationship with them."
When we give ourselves the credit, when we're competing to be the best instead of living our best life for God, when we're putting others down to make ourselves look better, when we're secretly hoping others fail so we get more of the spotlight, when we take any success and blessing that we've been given and turn it into arrogance, we’re living opposite of how we were created and designed to live. When we live this way, we're actually pointing people away from God. We're sending them in the wrong direction. People don't want a map showing them how to get to us. If we're the final and sought-after destination, people will be let down. They will be disappointed when they get there.
1 Peter 5:6
So humble yourselves under the mighty power of God, and at the right time he will lift you up in honor.
When we're lifting, inflating, and puffing ourselves up, it make those around us feel smaller...less. Which, whether we realized it or not, really was our goal. But what we may not know is that their view of us becomes smaller...less as well. But the opposite is true. When we lift, inflate, and puff others up, it makes those around us feel valued, more important, and so does their view of us. This is especially true when we do this while placing ourselves under God's authority, when it's all for His glory.
Another part of humbling ourselves is allowing others in. It's allowing others to help us, correct us, love us, and guide us. We can't overlook the fact that much of what God did throughout the Bible was accomplished through people, many of whom weren't the most talented, successful, or popular. How many people are we passing by that have exactly what we need but we can't even see them because they're too young, too old, not educated enough, not attractive or wealthy enough, et cetera, et cetera?
May God open our eyes to the help that's all around us and may we be humble enough to stop, turn, and receive the back hug we so desperately need.
Let the pork chops fly.
What is it about this room that draws us to it when we're frantically gasping for air? Do we want our last inhales to be of the fresh and invigorating scents that come from the urinal cakes? Or maybe it's the hand dryers that make our flesh look like ocean waves. Maybe we just want to die in the room where everything just seems so right with the world, where the only concern is if it will flush.
Okay, so I've taken that as far as it can go (probably a little too far, right?). Let's be real. No one wants to die in a bathroom. Out of all the places in the world this particular place would be down at the bottom (no pun intended). This just happens to be the place most choking victims land, because no matter where you are, you usually know where it is. It's one of the few places you can find quickly and hide in your most vulnerable state. No one wants to pee their pants in public or lose their life to a pork chop.
So why do we take our pork chops to the bathroom? In a word, it's pride. And a constant refusal to swallow it can cause us to walk by the only things that can save our lives. It's pride that causes us to try to save ourselves instead of asking for help. Sure, we've been taught that if no one else is around you can find a table or chair to assist in giving yourself the Heimlich Maneuver, but we won't be finding either of these in the lavatory. In fact, if I ever walked into a bathroom and saw a table and chair set up I probably would be letting the local authorities know.
Now, if pride can cause us to choose death over a back hug, what else is it capable of doing?
Most of us know that pride is what caused Satan's fall from Chief Angel to...well... Satan. But I think we've walked away from that story with a belief that pride is Satan's sin, or that it's something that only really evil people do, and so we've failed to recognize our own pride. Pride is bigger and more far reaching than trying to overtake God's throne.
I remember like it was yesterday, sitting in my Bible school class with around a hundred other students getting ready to write down an answer to a question that the instructor had given us. His question? "What is the definition of humility?" In previous weeks we had learned that to best understand and define pride you have to understand and be able to define humility. He said that if any one of us would get it right we would get some percentage points toward our final grade for the class.
We were all thinking the same thing. "Really, Teach, this is all you got? We're second-year students, and we all knew this answer when we were in our second year of life." You could almost hear the air pumping into our already inflated heads. The outcome? Not one person got the answer right. We all fell over, and it wasn't from the Spirit of God. It was from the sheer force of the Category 3 winds that leaked out of our egos. The air of humility was really swirling in the room that morning. I mean, we had just gotten prideful defining the word opposite of pride. (And we thought the devil was foolish.) His answer? "Humility is withdrawing from our way and yielding to God's way." In other words, pride is more expansive than we thought. Whenever we refuse to step back from our way rather than doing it God's way, pride is present.
It's important to look at this issue through the right set of lenses. God isn't trying to weigh us down with rules and regulations, quite the opposite. Instead, He is saying, "I've given you certain gifts and talents to accomplish my will not yours. I created you to give me the glory through all that I put in you, so that others will see that I am good and that I want a personal relationship with them."
When we give ourselves the credit, when we're competing to be the best instead of living our best life for God, when we're putting others down to make ourselves look better, when we're secretly hoping others fail so we get more of the spotlight, when we take any success and blessing that we've been given and turn it into arrogance, we’re living opposite of how we were created and designed to live. When we live this way, we're actually pointing people away from God. We're sending them in the wrong direction. People don't want a map showing them how to get to us. If we're the final and sought-after destination, people will be let down. They will be disappointed when they get there.
1 Peter 5:6
So humble yourselves under the mighty power of God, and at the right time he will lift you up in honor.
When we're lifting, inflating, and puffing ourselves up, it make those around us feel smaller...less. Which, whether we realized it or not, really was our goal. But what we may not know is that their view of us becomes smaller...less as well. But the opposite is true. When we lift, inflate, and puff others up, it makes those around us feel valued, more important, and so does their view of us. This is especially true when we do this while placing ourselves under God's authority, when it's all for His glory.
Another part of humbling ourselves is allowing others in. It's allowing others to help us, correct us, love us, and guide us. We can't overlook the fact that much of what God did throughout the Bible was accomplished through people, many of whom weren't the most talented, successful, or popular. How many people are we passing by that have exactly what we need but we can't even see them because they're too young, too old, not educated enough, not attractive or wealthy enough, et cetera, et cetera?
May God open our eyes to the help that's all around us and may we be humble enough to stop, turn, and receive the back hug we so desperately need.
Let the pork chops fly.
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