Psalm 31:23
"Oh, love the Lord, all you His saints!
For the Lord preserves the faithful,
And fully repays the proud person."
I love it when God reminds me I'm His saint. For so long, for so much of my life, all I have dwelt on and focused on have been my shortcomings, my faults, my imperfections.
I had this idea about humility - that in order to be truly humble, I had to constantly put myself down, never accept compliments, always talk about my bad points.
And over the years, this evolved into self-hatred. I literally hated everything about myself: my looks, my weight, my grades, my inability to make friends (gee, I wonder why that was?), my entire life. Everything was wrong. I set ridiculously high standards for myself that absolutely no one could attain.
But then the negativity about my life bled over into negativity about others' lives.
I became critical of everyone and everything around me. I wasn't acting like a saint; I wasn't even acting like a nice person.
I was so focused on me trying not to focus on me, I ironically fell into the very trap I was going to such great lengths to avoid.
And that's what false humility is: disguised selfishness. We think it's genuine humility, but look where the focus is: me, myself, & I.
Bu this verse calls us saints. Not wannabes. Not keep-tryings. God looks down and sees His Son in us; we are His SAINTS.
Not through any good we have shown, but through the goodness and love of His Son living in us.
And what should our response be? What else could it be? LOVE!!!
LOVE for the God Who does not condemn us.
LOVE for the God Who doesn't love us conditionally.
LOVE for the God Who knew we weren't saints, yet made us saints by His Son.
How could our response be anything but Love?
Who, when they've been offered a free, underserved gift, could respond with anything less? If He loves us this much, how can we not unashamedly love Him back?
And as if that weren't enough, the Psalmist gives us an extra reason: "For He preserves the faithful."
I like that word: preserves. It makes me think of a photo - preserving the moment. Or canning fruits for the winter - preserving it for later.
The Lord knows we can't be faithful on our own, in our own strength. I can't be faithful for 5 minutes, let alone a lifetime. So He does the work for us; He preserves us.
He takes us, with Christ living inside us, and preserves us, protects us. And the funny part is: He's preserving us and protecting us because We. Can't. Do. It. Ourselves. We keep trying, but we'll never be able to do it.
We're hopeless without Him.
All that false humility, trying in our own strength? Futile. Worthless. Hopeless.
The verse doesn't say He preserves the perfect or the flawless or the most humble - He preserves the faithful - the ones who keep trying and failing and falling and trying some more. The ones who weep on their faces when they don't have the strength to take one more step. The ones who wear out their knees with prayer. The ones who know they're not perfect, can never be perfect, yet are OK in their imperfections.
Will they keep striving? Yes! Will they reach it? No! But it's OK - "LOVE the Lord, you His saints, for HE preserves the faithful."
HE is doing the hard part for us! HE is doing the preserving! All we are commanded to do is LOVE! We have the easy part! A photo doesn't preserve itself. It requires an outside force to tenderly frame it or put it in a photo album. I haven't done a lot of canning in my time, but one thing I do know: those fruits & vegetables sure don't can themselves. It requires a dedicated cook, willing to stand over a hot stove for several hours doing all the work.
All that trying to achieve things in our own strength? Pointless! HE's got it all under control already. Why does the God of the Universe need our puny little help? It's like an ant trying to help build a skyscraper.
All that fear? The "what-if"s? The feeling like we simply MUST take control of at least THIS? Futile. Worthless wastes of energy. We simply must Love Him.
And Love our neighbors.
And, yes, it's OK to Love ourselves: be happy with ourselves the way He made us. That number on the scale? Not important. That set of freckles on your cheeks or birthmark on your nose? He put them there. That is your signature look, straight from the hand of God. Don't hide it or change it.
The Lord preserves His saints. Doesn't that relieve so much pressure? It should! Stop trying in your own strength. Stop being the ant. Simply. Love. Him. And He. Will. Preserve. You.
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