This past week we had Woody Woodson with us at PF. It was an absolutely amazing time. I saw life literally being spoken into people. It was amazing. We are now expecting to see fruit like we have never seen before. We had many meetings with him with some of the largest crowds we have ever had at special services. There is a huge hunger in our people and in our region.
There were so many things worth writing about. On Tuesday afternoon the staff was sitting around and talking with him and one of the guys asked him about how to maintain humility. (Woody is a genuinely humble guy) He was asked how to maintain humility especially when great and amazing things are happening. This is what he said. "If you compare yourself to others you are in trouble, but if you keep comparing yourself to Jesus you will always have the proper perspective. Neither too high or too low." That is the key to walking this thing out. Continually see yourself through the eyes of the Father. Nobody else's opinion on how good or how bad you are should affect you.
May we all gaze into the eyes of Jesus and draw our worth and reality from Him and Him alone.
I think that is a great definition of humility. Humility is the greatest virtue and no one can be saved without it. It is easy sometimes to think too little of ourselves but that is a selfish delusion as much as thinking too much of ourselves. It reminds me of my favorite story from the Sayings of the Desert Fathers(keep in mind that we Orthodox call our monks "father" as opposed to "brother" in the Western tradition):
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Of course, we are all to consider ourselves the worst of sinners because we cannot judge others, but when we fall into despair we become like Judas and have lost true humility by focusing on ourselves and lost the ability to repent in our despair.
I've been thinking a lot about this lately. Thanks for the post!