Tag Archives: Control

An Extraordinary Life

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“You can’t achieve the extraordinary if you don’t attempt the extraordinary.”
—Pastor Phillip C. Carr

Yesterday at church, my leadership development pastor, Phillip Carr, challenged the congregation to be extraordinary Christians. He said many of us fight more for the ordinary life we lead instead of the extraordinary life that Jesus Christ means for us to have (1 Peter 1:3; John 10:10). I so related to this, with my recovering judgmental self. You know that trifling, lazy people bother me. And those of us who have the Spirit of Christ have no excuse. So as a high achiever, I was in the amen corner yesterday but felt myself shrinking a bit when he talked about those who are satisfied with our achievements just because they may be better than someone with low standards. Though I’m not prone to compare myself to a low achiever, I find myself—from the pressure of being a strong black woman—settling for that’ll do because what I’ve done is better than most and not so bad for me, and I have a whole bunch more to get done. I was going to do that today, by posting a piece that I really want you to read, but it’s not quite finished yet. But I decided to be extraordinary, better than average, and allow God to use me in that piece. So today I just want you to ponder “An extraordinary Christian is an ordinary Christian who has allowed God to have His way in (her) life” (Pastor Carr). And ask yourself (and tell me in the comments section), “Am I being an extraordinary Christian?”

Copyright 2009 by Rhonda J. Smith

15 Signs of Pride

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If any of the following describes you, you might be dealing with pride:

    1. You don’t like to apologize.
    2. You don’t apologize.
    3. Your apology is “I’m sorry you feel bad.”
    4. You hold grudges.
    5. You envy what others have.
    6. You compete for the attention others get.
    7. You don’t like to give compliments.
    8. Your compliment to another woman is “Oh, I have one just like that.”
    9. You compare your achievements to others’ achievements (e.g., I used to be able to do that).
    10. You compare your failures to others’ failures (e.g., At least I’m not as bad as …).
    11. You belittle someone’s accomplishment (e.g., I remember when you used to be wild or I remember when we used to hang out together at Charger’s Bar).
    12. You don’t ask for help.
    13. You reject the help given to you.
    14. You don’t like to admit when you don’t know something (e.g., the meaning of a word someone uses or the name of someone you see all the time)
    15. You don’t leave the house (or have an attitude when you do) because you’re not perfectly put together (e.g., You refuse to wear sandals if your toenails aren’t polished).

Seeking Your Leaders

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Sometimes we don’t know how not to be ourselves. We may immediately speak what’s on our mind, to tell the truth to someone in darkness, even though scripture tells us to be slow to speak, quick to hear and slow to wrath (James 1:9). Maybe it’s not swift speaking. Maybe it’s something good like cleaning the house or paying bills when God would have us do something more beneficial at the time. Or maybe it’s like with me, relying upon my own ability to hear from God. We just do what we do because we’ve always done it that way and it’s easy for us, convenient for us. In these instances God has to step in to help us. This was the case with me.

God made me as one who has a strong desire for His presence through direct contact with Him. Seeking Him for myself has been a strength for me. I rarely seek the direction of authority figures in my life because I haven’t felt a need to. Well, God showed me that I must go to them because they are there to lead me. I knew this intellectually (Hebrews 13:7 & 17) but would not allow this truth to manifest physically. God allowed me to become spiritually weak so that His purpose for leadership placed in my life might be fulfilled. I needed humbling and to recognize that I wasn’t treating my leaders like His representatives. It was natural for me to count on myself.

Like the Apostle Paul, God has allowed me to experience some wonderful things in the spirit. To ensure that I didn’t boast about these experiences (and even dismiss the spiritual effectiveness of my leaders), I, like Paul, had to receive a thorn in my flesh. God knew that Paul’s natural tendency would be haughtiness. He knew the same for me. He sent me the thorn of spiritual dryness so I could seek refreshment from my leaders. And as God would have it, they had words of life and light for me in two areas of darkness that I had been groping in. Spiritual self-reliance—arrogance—is dangerous. Even with knowing the voice of God, as blogger Milan Ford says, it’s always good to still check in with Eli for direction.
Copyright 2009 by Rhonda J. Smith

Spiritual Pride

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A few weeks ago I told you about a dry place I had been in. There was not the connection with God that I was used to having. I was going through the motions of prayer and reading the bible; there was no bible studying except for family devotions. I kept crying and crying out to God. I told you that He answered through my sister: Lose control, He commanded, so I knew that I was still trying to control something. The challenge from there was discovering what it was. Well, God told me recently, and it was an amazing truth that I have not wanted to accept: I was suffering from spiritual pride.

woman with bible

He showed me that my well-worn method of devotional time to get into and feel His presence had to be changed. I was doing the same things and not getting the same results. I was spiritually weak and God showed me that I had not been living (2 Corinthians 12:9). He told me that I had to stop relying on my methods and be weak so His strength would be made perfect. Of course I understood 2 Corinthians 12:9 intellectually. If I am being strong I get in the way of God’s strength doing all it needs to make my situation perfect. I have understood that God sometimes allows things in my life to cause me to buckle from their weight so that I become weak, forcing me to look up to Him. I have understood this intellectually. I thought I modeled this pretty well physically because I have allowed God to have His way in the many areas of pride where I’ve struggled; I was forced “not to exalt myself above measure” (2 Cor. 12:7).

I cut my locks, disconnected from groups, resisted engaging in certain conversations. I have given up some things that caused me to be boastful. But spiritual pride was not something I had ever thought I struggled with. One of my spiritual leaders had called me spiritually arrogant, but I denied it, couldn’t see it. And now God was showing me that spiritual arrogance—pride—had been the source of my spiritual wasteland experience. God allowed a thorn in my flesh—experiences to keep me spiritually weak—so that I could humble myself and allow His strength to be made perfect. What a startling revelation, one that I’m still accepting as my reality.Tune in for more to this. In the meantime, I still long for your pride experiences.
Copyright 2009 by Rhonda J. Smith

Pride

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This Mother’s Day I got treated to rest and dinner. My husband took care of my one-year-old all through church service and fulfilled most of our children’s demands throughout the weekend; I ate at my favorite restaurant (The Blue Nile, Ethiopian); and I finally watched the TD Jakes’ movie Not Easily Broken with Morris Chestnut and Taraji P. Henson.

For those of you who haven’t seen the movie, it’s about what happens to a married couple that doesn’t keep God at the center of the marriage. In this movie, selfish desires take precedence and allow bitterness and blame shifting to become basis of the couple’s interactions. Ultimately, pride is what keeps each of them from continually pursuing the other to make amends. But a conversation with her mother led the wife to a revelation of her complicity in destroying her marriage.

In defending why she encouraged her daughter to put her husband out of the house, her mother said: “Black women have to be strong and you know that.” “And in all your lessons about how I need to be strong and proud and independent, Mama, you left out some very important things. How to love, Mama. How to really care about somebody. How to forgive.” Oh, this struck a chord with me. My mama, too, like many of our mothers, gave us the reality lesson of the double struggle that comes with being black and a woman: People automatically discount your strengths so you have to work twice as hard to be considered half as good. And for me and others I know, this made us work more than twice as hard because we wanted to be considered more than half as good. This excellence, for me, resulted in pride. Not the kind that prompts you to have good self grooming and appreciate how God made you (this is good pride), but the kind that says, “I’m all that. I’d rather just do it myself to make sure it gets done right.” I became self-reliant and in my recovery, I have had to learn how to have God esteem, not self-esteem, and let people help me.

Pride has been my source of strength, my vice, for many years. We know that pride comes in many forms, and I have dealt with a good variety of them: intellectual pride, family pride, sorority pride, material pride, just to name a few (Yes, there are more. I will be delivered, in Jesus’ name). As I prepare to reveal my proud self in various areas of my life, tell me where you struggle with pride. How has pride been a hindrance for you? Talk to me.

Copyright 2009 by Rhonda J. Smith