Being Humble Where God Has You

A lot of times God will have us in a certain place, situation, or season that we don’t really want to be in. We don’t fully see the purpose of us being there and everything in us fights against the place He has us. It could be a season where things don’t look the way you expected, a time were certain needs or desires haven’t been met, an undesirable living situation, or an extended trial. When God has us in these uncomfortable and unwanted places it’s easy to feel like we should be past it, like we should have moved on by now, or like we just deserve better.

I am currently in this place and every time I start to complain in my flesh, God always takes me to the word and calms me down. Recently He showed me how as His children we have to learn to be humble wherever He has us – especially when we find ourselves in uncomfortable and humbling seasons. It’s so easy to try to buck against what God is doing, it’s so easy to complain and feel like maybe somehow God doesn’t hear our prayers or has forgotten about our needs in certain areas. It is so easy to wallow in doubt, fear, unbelief, hopelessness and despondency and act like the God that we serve is somehow powerless to change our circumstances. But while we are busy acting out in our flesh, God is saying to us, “HUMBLE YOURSELF.” “Humble yourself where I have you and be humble to the process that I’m allowing you to walk through.” Sometimes we get prideful and have an attitude of entitlement. We thing we “deserve” to be married by now, deserve to have that career we’ve always wanted by now, or we deserve to be more financially well off by now, or deserve to have launched our business or ministry by now. We think we deserve for God to have moved by now. But what we fail to realize is that He is moving right where He has us. We fail to realize that where God has us at the moment is His will. It’s not by accident that we are where we are, God intentionally puts us in each season for our good. When we really humble ourselves, and accept and embrace what God is doing (no matter how uncomfortable) then we can really get the lesson and grow in that place. James 4:6 says, “God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.” If we humble ourselves where God has us, He will give us grace to endure it. Whatever He allows us to walk through, there is a measure of grace for that season, but if we’re constantly trying to fight against what God is doing then we will never be in a position to receive the grace He wants to pour on us.

To be humble where He has you also means to be of the same mind as Him. “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men” (Philippians 2:5-7). Meditate on those verses for a few seconds. Jesus Christ humbled Himself to God’s will for His life which was for Him to come down in human form, suffer at the hands of those He created, die for our sins, and be resurrected. He didn’t think Himself too high to go thought that process, though it was difficult. He wanted to do whatever was on God’s mind for Him. Do you know that God knows in advance what He will have us walk through? Seasons of joy AND seasons of difficulty? When we said yes to God for the very first time, we were also saying yes to everything He had in mind for us to go through. Every trial, crushing, persecution, etc., it was all in His mind for us to make us into mature believers. These times are absolutely necessary and in order for us to grow, we must humble ourselves to it, and say like Jesus: “not my will but Your will be done.” He is the Potter and we are the clay (Jeremiah 18:1-11), it’s not our job to tell Him what to do with your life, it’s our job to submit to whatever He chooses to do.

What will help us to stay humble is remembering that God ALWAYS has a reason behind the why. Today you may be asking yourself: why hasn’t God changed my situation yet? Why am I still here? Why are things still the same, if not worse? Why, why why?? But God has a reason for it all. While you’re in it it’s hard to see the bigger picture, especially when you’re in a season of great sorrow and your heart is constantly crying out to God in anguish. Instead of giving in to that temptation to quit on God or quit on your process all together, H-U-M-B-L-E  Y-O-U-R-S-E-L-F. None of us are above God’s process of purification. We must ALL go through that purging and purifying process. Like Job said in Job 23:10, “when He has tested me, I shall come forth as pure gold” (I suggest reading the whole chapter). Job counted God as righteous even in all the hell He allowed him to walk through. Can you count God as righteous in His decisions concerning you? Can you see that you are being made into pure gold? God has to take you through this process to make you into what He has called you to be; why not submit to it instead of fighting against it. Many of us (myself included), when we hear the wonderful prophecies of what God is going to do in our lives and how He is going to use us mightily, we rejoice. But when it’s time to go through the fire that’s going to bring those words to pass, we cry, scream, kick, and run. We like hearing about what God is going to do, but we don’t like the process that we have to go through to get there. If we skip the process and jump straight to the promise, we will end up only destroying ourselves.

Humility is needed today for where God is taking you tomorrow. You can’t afford not to be humble where you are, you can’t afford to not go through this humbling process. God showed me that if He doesn’t take me through these humbling seasons today, I will be ill equipped for where He wants to take me tomorrow. Imagine if God gave us everything we wanted, when we wanted it, and how we wanted it ALL THE TIME. We would be spoiled kids. We wouldn’t have any kind of spiritual backbone, we wouldn’t know how to endure through anything, how to walk through any trials or persecution, we wouldn’t know how to wait on God, how to worship Him through a storm, or anything. We would be wimps in the spirit and the enemy would have a field day with us. We wouldn’t know how to pray anyone through anything because we never had to pray ourselves through anything, and we wouldn’t know how to bear one another’s burdens because we never had burdens of our own to bear. God even showed me that our doctrine would be off because we’d be so high on sugar because we would never be given meat to swallow –  we would think that God was a God who did whatever we wanted and we would teach that to everyone else. We would end up super prideful when He does manifest His promises because we wouldn’t have those seasons of humility to keep us humble in seasons of plenty. Now I sincerely thank God for today’s process of humility (even though it hurts). I thank Him because as He adds things to me and fulfills His promises for my life, humility will be instilled in me – no matter what He adds to me, I can remember to stay low, knowing that the Lord gives and the Lord takes away and whether I’m in a season of harvest or drought, blessed be the name of the Lord. It’s also preparing me for His return, so that when I stand before God and give account for my life, I will be “perfect and complete, lacking nothing” (James 1:4, I suggest you read that whole passage as well).

So wherever God has you now, “humble yourself in the sight of the Lord, and He will lift you up” (James 4:10). God loves humility ad He responds to those who are humble at heart. How can we say we have a heart of worship or that we are worshippers if we are unwilling to submit to and accept where God sees fit to have us now? I am the first partaker of this as God is teaching me to humble myself to where He has me. So I pray that we all, together, would truly stop fighting against the thing that our Almighty, All Knowing God chooses to use to perfect us. I pray that although our flesh does not enjoy it, that our spirit would rejoice in it knowing that we are being made into the finest of gold. (If you know this is something you struggle with, I recommend reading all the verses and passages mentioned, especially Jeremiah 18:1-11 and James 4).

P.s. – if you’ve emailed me recently via the contact page, please bear with me as I get to all the emails. I see every single one that comes through and I will reply to them all as soon as I can. ❤