Friday, April 24, 2009

Pedestal Person One

Are you a pedestal person? Or are you a person who puts other people on a pedestal?  Both positions are dangerous.  Lest it appear like I am pointing the finger away from myself, I'll use me as the example of what this might look like.

First let's define pedestal. It's a structure meant to display something.  Anything that is on a pedestal is meant to be displayed or admired. For example, I have a plant pedestal in my home that allows me to observe whatever plant of the moment is thriving upon it. 

Now imagine with me that the pedestal of which I speak is in my own mind (or yours). This could/would mean that I greatly admire myself and that I might be prone to treat myself to some level of high esteem (or that I at least want to be treated like something.)

Right now I am oh, so ready to come to my own defense in this matter. Ah, but I am afraid I cannot, simply because I know myself. I know the thoughts that I think at times and I know that in those moments I am oh, so full of myself.

You know the thoughts I mean, don't you?  Any person with a heart bent toward God knows from whence I speak.  Over the past year or so, multiple moments have occurred that have brought pedestal awareness to the surface.  Some of my worst thinking about other people happens in those moments. In each incident it was ME on the throne of my heart reacting...not CHRIST in me.  (Thank the Lord God that in Him there is no condemnation!)

Put another way, the most common way pedestal thinking shows up in me is anytime I perceive someone to be talking down to me. Wham! The pedestal shakes, topples and I find myself scrambling for solid ground.

Over, and over, and over again, life will give us opportunities for growth. Lately that's exactly what is happening and I hate/love it all at once.  I hate the pain I feel in the midst of it, and yet I love the fact that the ground on which I land is unshakeable and sure because it's at the foot of the Cross.  This is the safest, most secure place that I know.

There is one God and He alone is worthy of praise; He alone will have the place of esteem in my heart.  I thank Him and praise Him (yeah, even when it hurts) for loving me so much as to allow me to fall down so He can pick me up and hold me close while His Holy Spirit teaches me how to "be" without needing to be.  I thank Him that my need to be is as He wills and not as I will.  I thank Him for His patience and His kindness, His mercy, His grace and for the truth of His Word, wherein I find freedom to live and move and have my being.  Being that is not dependant on pedestal placement in my own heart and mind.

There is one God and Him only will I serve.

Question:  Do you have pedestal moments...and when you do, what does it look like in your life? 

Let's praise the Lord now for His kindness in revealing the ways this is true in us and praise Him for loving us so much that He died so that we might have life and life more abundantly; life unfettered by the deceitfulness of the sin of pride.  Let's thank Him now for lifting us up out of the miry clay and setting our feet upon the Rock; the solid Rock of Christ Jesus. 
Let's praise Him, thank Him and then ask Him to help us change. 

Selah.

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