Kelly - Proverbs 12

Wow - starting right off with the need for correction and discipline. That wakes me up a bit to the content of the chapter.

When my oldest child was 3 or 4, she had a VERY hard time with apologizing to others. We taught her, like every other parent, to say "sorry" when she accidentally bumped into someone or knocked something over. No matter how many times we explained that apologizing was necessary, and that we still loved her, and that it didn't make her any less of a good person - - - it was like pulling teeth to get those words out of her mouth. In later years, this was replaced by the saying of "sorry," but in what is probably the most snide and sarcastic tone ever heard by human ears. We're progressing in the right direction....but still have some work to do.

But this isn't a blog about my daughter....the truth is that I know where she gets this stubborn streak from. It isn't from her father.

I haven't yet figured out humility. To me it's one of the great mysteries of faith - like the Trinity or "fully God, fully man." How do I stand humbly before God and still accept that I am cherished by the Creator and the hairs on my head are numbered?

Accepting the "fully God, fully man" identity of Jesus is like walking on the ridgepost of a roof - sometimes I fall towards one side and sometimes towards the other. The same seems true for a right sense of humility. Sometimes (oftentimes) I am proud before God - and sometimes I deny that I have any worth and am made in God's image.

I think the key may lie in today's Proverbs - discipline and correction. Humility accepts them both - with gratitude. But we don't bother to correct a person we don't love. Discipline comes out of a prayer for the future.