An oldie but a goodie....

I posted this over a year ago, but I think it is worth re-posting.

Humility

This particular quality that God calls us to seems to be one of the most elusive to define or display with any kind of certainty. In college, we used to joke that humility was the virtue you lost just by admitting you had attained it. I think sometimes we make it more complicated than it is.

Going around acting like you're just a little worm with no value to anyone is really false humility, because that's fishing for compliments and praise. And it's an act - you're trying to get people to think of you as humble and you can pride yourself on how well you don't think anything of yourself.

The Apostle Paul said to the Romans in chapter 12:

3 For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the measure of faith God has given you.

Notice he doesn't say "Do not think of yourself, period." He says "Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought." Which means of course, that you should think something of yourself. But you should have a correct and sober view of yourself - not too high - you're a fallen, sinful human saved only by God's grace, after all - and not too low -placing yourself beneath everyone's feet is a form of pride.

Paul goes on to talk about spiritual gifts, and how each should use the gift God has given him. God has given every believer a spiritual gift, something you're naturally good at to use to benefit the church, and he expects you to use it. It's not pride to admit that you are good at whatever your gift happens to be. John MacArthur points out it's more prideful to fake a gift you don't really have or to hide, downplay or not use a gift you do have.

The same is true with the strengths God has given each of us outside the particular realm of spiritual gifts. Those too came from God, after all. He wanted you to have them and to use them. It's not prideful to acknowledge your strengths and abilities as such, or to accept praise for them with grace and a simple thank you. A hanging head or brushing off a sincere compliment is also false humility. (Like when you get a compliment on your pretty outfit, and you say "This old thing?") The truly humble thing to do is to simply (and sincerely!) say thank you.

To brush off or hang your head at the gifts and abilities God has given you or to envy the gifts he gave someone else over your own is to denigrate God's judgment in the way he created you. He made you exactly how he wanted you, for exactly the purpose he had for you.

True humility is recognizing in accurate measure both your strengths and your weaknesses. Playing either one up or down artificially is pride and false humility.

Obama won

Honestly I'm not feeling that congratulatory on this at the moment, but he won. He will be the next president. I only have 2 things to say about this.

First, God is ultimately in charge. He places leaders in their positions of authority and He turns the heart of the king as He wills. We as Christians should depend on God for our needs and not on the government.

Second, who wants to take bets on how long it takes him to destroy the 1st and 2nd amendments? Any bets on how many other amendments he takes on?  The 4th amendment is only in question if you happen to disagree with him on anything. (Say your name is Sean Hannity or Rush Limbaugh for instance. Or Joe Wurzelbacher.) Oh, and the 10th amendment is toast. Any takers? Any of the other amendments you see disappearing over the next 4 years?

OK, I'm being catty, but this man scares me to no end. Pray for this country.

5 Weeks!!! And a challenge for you.

So the message board associated with Dave Ramsey's website, at MyTotalMoneyMakeover.com (TMMO for short) is starting a grocery challenge before Thanksgiving. Details of the challenge to follow. So in considering my participation in the challenge, I decided to take an inventory of my kitchen. I went through my fridge, freezer and cabinets and wrote down every edible item in my kitchen, spices, condiments, oils and all. I typed it all up on Word and came out with 2 full 2-column pages. Then I posted it on the board for our resident menu wizard and the others to work on for me. I had been waffling on whether or not to participate, and when she saw my list she said "Good grief girl! And you were worried about participating??" Cracked me up.

Our resident menu wizard is amazing. We love her and most of us aspire to be her, lol. She worked on my list for a while, and came back with 5 weeks worth of meals from what I already have with only a handful of things to buy. Wow. 5 weeks!! I had no idea I had that much food. It certainly doesn't feel like it. But she knows what she's doing and she made it happen. I don't even have to think for the next 5 weeks if I choose not to. Just go down the list and cook as directed. And I probably mostly will, although there's a couple things I'll likely change a little.

So, needless to say I'm in for the challenge. And now I'm challenging you. You can probably guess some of it already, but here it is.

The challenge is to only spend $25/wk on groceries between now and Thanksgiving and use up as much stuff from your kitchen as you can before the holidays hit. Clean out your freezer and your pantry, make room for your holiday shopping. Start the new year out fresh. Be creative. Think outside the box. Dig into the back of the pantry for things that you have long forgotten about. You might have to throw some of them out, but you're likely to have several things you can still use. Use them. Experiment. Try some new recipes. Have fun. Let your kids have fun with it.

Now we all know the price of groceries has gone up in the recent past and family sizes vary, so if you need to raise the limit, then do it. $40, $50, whatever. Just something below what you normally spend each week.

So anyone in? I'm in at $40/wk, but I somehow doubt I'm going to need that much now.

Karma perhaps?

Methinks the karma train just bit a coworker in the butt. Haha! (Is that mean of me?) So I had to go to training yesterday and today, and while I was out there, I went to see the call center. I saw this girl there, she works with me, and I thought she was in training and just visiting or something. But then I realized she was logged into the computer and had a headset on. So I asked her if she moved to the call center. Yes. She got a bit smart with me when I asked her how long she's been there (I know it hasn't been more than a few weeks) and the conversation ended quickly after that.

I was on my way to see my previous supervisor, and I asked her about it. She didn't say very much, but I have the idea the transfer was at least somewhat involuntary. I could be wrong though. But I do think this is karma coming back to get her. If you've been reading here for a while, you've seen me post about how people in the division just love to talk smack about the call center and they have absolutely no respect for the call center or the people that work there. This girl was one of them. And look at her now! She's one of them! I can't help but love it. I hope she's getting a serious attitude adjustment regarding the work the call center does and fast. Those people work hard, much harder than most of the people in any of the other divisions, and it shows in the promotions.

A huge majority of the promotions are people that are in call center or call center alumni. Some of this has to do with the fact that they've been sending all of the new hires to call center for several years, so everyone, with few exceptions, has to do their time there, but there are still plenty of people around who have never worked in call center and they are still not the ones getting promoted.

Be careful who you snub your nose at - you may become one of them someday. That karma train hurts.

I've talked a little bit here about how my church had a split in 1997. Well, today I ran into one of the women who left the church in the split. I would never have recognized her if she hadn't told me who she was. So we talked for a few minutes and she asked me where I go to church. I told her I'm still going to church with the same pastor. (We're a completely different church now, but the same pastor and many of the same people.) She was surprised.

Apparently in 11 years, I'm the only person she's run into that didn't leave in the split. That blows my mind a bit. We're a much smaller church than we were before the split, but even so, a large part of our congregation is still people who came out of the split. It's not like there aren't plenty of us around! I find it odd she hasn't run into anyone else in all this time. I wonder who else she's run into then, or who she is going to church with now. I didn't think to ask her where she's going to church now, but I wish I had.