Humble Yourselves, Therefore...

I'm a selfish person.

It's true. I'm working on it, starting with my heart. I've begun the healing process, but I've yet to let go completely.

Other day's ramblings:

30 minutes before church this morning I got a text asking if I could come into work at 12. That was kind of poopish. But I got hours, so it's whatever. Me and another girl (also named Katie) are basically running the place. It's awesome. My hands smell like bleach. And I'm not very good at mopping, so I'm going to make the high schoolers do it at the end of their shifts. Muahaha.

I'm so thankful for my co-workers though. I mean, we're all kids really, but I like them all and we work well together after only 2 days! My feet still hurt a lot, though.

I enjoyed church this morning. Our Minister to Adults preached this morning, and I really like her and her sermons. She talked about the "fishers of men" parable in Matthew, and it made me think, a lot. I just can't articulate it. I need to give my heart to God on this one and listen for Him. It's gonna be really cool.

In Sunday school, the most important thing I think I learned today was that to truly practice humility, you have to go out of YOUR OWN way, and step into someone else's. It hit me so hard today, and I took it literally as well as physically. I though a lot about focus.

It's important that we're always focused. Always. Different people will tell to be focused on different things. Teachers, our studies. Coaches, our bodies and our health. Our parents, how to become good people. But God. God calls us to be focused on Him. But now that comes with a lot of different things, kind of. I mean if you just read through the Bible you can see all He wants us to do, and how it all comes with having the right heart.

But today I reworked focus in my brain. In a very literal sense: We go to Walmart to buy groceries, or more realistically for me, crafting supplies, we know where we need to go, what we need to get, what aisle(ish) everything is on, so we just go. It's not like I'm rushing, I just go, and do it, no distractions. But when I thought about this type of focus, someone we're talking to in casual conversation would probably say this is a good trait that we have. But what would God say about it?

Because what if we are so heavily focused on the things we think we need or want to get done that we neglect the immediately present needs of others? What if an elderly person was struggling to reach an item on a shelf nearby? We would have missed it. What if a mom with several children in tow drops something, frustrated, kids hanging all over her, and we fail to notice because we're so determined to do what WE need to do? Practicing selfishness and pride would look like that. BUT HUMILITY would look like focusing on God, in everything we do: we would ACTIVELY SEEK opportunities to help people around us because that is the second most important thing we're ever supposed to do (next to loving God: loving our neighbors AS OURSELVES).

So then, what if we treated every single person we saw in Walmart as just as important as the errand we needed to run, and gave it just as much attention? Even more? God would be pleased. This is something I need to practice. And something I want to practice in order to grow in my relationship with God and allow Him to reform my heart; change my life.

God is so awesome, and I need to recognize that more often, give Him all the credit for that, and praise His name all the time, trusting in Him to do everything He says He's able to and says He will do for me!

I need to soak in His awesomeness.

I love that my computer just auto-corrected the word "awesomeness".