Good morning, dear friends,
Like the new spring theme? I guess it's wishful thinking.
I went on a bike ride and played tennis with Timothy yesterday.
It was snowing this morning when I woke up.
Welcome to March in northern France.
SIGH
Funny experiences abound when you are a foreigner adapting to a different cultural surrounding. People are still people, and yet, they're different. Or maybe I should say, different from me.
Living in France, I have gotten used to being told I am wrong.
About everything.
On a daily basis.
My language is wrong. My way of disciplining children is wrong. My way of dressing is wrong.
I joined a crafting circle here in Boves, where once a week I would sit with grandmas living here and do my cross stitch. Not only was I doing it wrong, but they couldn't agree on the right way to do it. There were eight ladies, with 16 different ways of doing cross stitch.
I haven't been back for a while.
(Not just because I was told I was doing it wrong, but because I couldn't sit still in a hard backed chair for three hours doing cross stitch. Or anything else, for that matter.)
Yesterday, I was even told that I was pedaling a bicycle wrong. Really? How many different ways are there to pedal a bike?
More than one, apparently.
It's hard to be told that you are wrong about something, isn't it? I was always amazed by my mother-in-love. No matter how many times she was told by a French person that she was doing something wrong, she would just shrug and laugh it off. It may have stung privately, but she never let it show publically.
Our sinful nature WANTS to be right. It DEMANDS that we be right. After all, if I were doing something wrong, don't you think that I would do it differently? Do you think that I go around doing things wrong ON PURPOSE?
Of course not. No one does.
Our selfish nature seeks to be justified, to show that it knows better than everyone else around us, and it will not be appeased. Only constant submission to the Holy Spirit (and painfully gnashing down on my tongue sometimes) keep me from lashing out with the words that I long to say:
"Don't you think that I know what I'm doing? Do I look stupid to you?"
(My children have learned not to answer that question when I ask it.)
This week I was reading in Proverbs, and since I was paying attention to the verses that talk about my walk, and the ways of man/ways of God, I was amazed at the number of times God reminds us in His Word, that we are WRONG, and that He alone is RIGHT.
There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death. Proverbs 14:12
Every way of a man is right in his own eyes: but the Lord pondereth the hearts. Proverbs 21:2
All the ways of a man are clean in his own eyes; but the Lord weigheth the spirits. Proverbs 16:2
What is the common thread for me in these verses? I may think I know what's going on in this world, and I may think that I understand what God is doing or how He wants me to act, but I can't KNOW for sure. I could be assuming that I am right, when in reality, if I am not checking my thoughts and ways against the Word of God, I may be (and often am) dreadfully wrong.
May God help me today, in humility, to examine my ways. Am I walking in God's Word, or in my own ways? Am I seeking to know His mind on the matter, or stubbornly holding to my own prideful thoughts?
And when others say that I am wrong, does it really matter? Or can I lovingly, patiently accept what others tell me (even if they are wrong :) and let God use me to be an instrument of His grace today?
Time to get out of the way...
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