The House

I was going to post a nice message about Christmas with cute pictures of the girls and talk about how wonderful a time we had and the great relaxing break we had but no. No, I thought I'd disclose something a lot more personal.

For quite some time I've had dreams about a particular house. It is always the same house even though I may dream about different rooms or the driveway or different parts of the house. I had one such dream the other night.

I was in the kitchen and with me was an older man in a wheelchair. I talked to him as though we were familiar but not in a respectful familiar way, rather in a familiar contemptful way. I looked over in the corner and saw a large spider in its web with a huge worm/snake still wiggling and moving that would soon be a meal for the spider. Close by was another spider as well. Ugh! I thought. I'll have to get Erik to call terminix to get all these bugs out of here.

I turned to the man in the wheelchair and said (rather disdainfully) "why do you stay here with all these bugs?" He just turned away from me and didn't answer.

When I woke up I had the usual thought that someday we would own this house. Why else would I keep dreaming about it? Then it hit me.

It's my heart.

Why is my heart filled with bugs? Is the man in the wheelchair God? Why was I so disdainful to him and limiting him by putting him in a wheelchair? What a yucky heart I have!

I didn't understand this. I thought I was doing well. I wasn't struggling with some sin like sometimes in my life, I was journaling every day and while I had stopped fasting and praying at the abortion clinic, I actually felt that God released me from that for this season in my life. Why would my heart be so yucky?

Ohhh. Pride.

Pride is a sin that you don't think about. It is the sin that says you don't need God - you're doing fine on your own. It's the sin that creeps up on you.

Ben Franklin wrote "There is perhaps no one of our natural passions so hard to subdue as pride. Beat it down, stifle it, mortify it as much as one pleases, it is still alive. Even if I could conceive that I had completely overcome it, I should probably be proud of my humility."

So wise and so true.

"May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ" ~Gal 6:14