There is nothing worse than losing the benefit of having done a good thing.
I know the feeling all too well: having done the sort of thing that I am called to do as a Christian, I immediately go forth and undo all the good work I have just done. Sometimes it by a comment that I think is witty but is not, sometimes it is an immediate relapse into a behavior - anger for example, sometimes it is simply taking all the credit for having done the thing. No matter what the thing, it result is the same: the benefits of what I have done melts away.
Oh, not the work itself: that still stands. But the reasons behind it, the opinion people have of me and why I did it, even my very witness - evaporated faster than the morning dew in a hot sun.
Humility comes not just through doing the good works we should be doing. It is a process that happens before, during - and most especially after. The humble man remembers humility at all times, not just in the doing of humble deeds but in the aftermath of having done them.
"before, during - and most especially after" words to try to remember and live by......well stated TB.
ReplyDeleteNylon12, I have often been convicted that I have acted well in the moment - but so very little the time, well after it.
DeletePride tickles my nose before I sneeze it out. I've learned (I HOPE!) to stifle most of those sneezes.
ReplyDeleteI try John, I try - but the sneezes still escape.
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