Big Bold Humble Truth

Ok - so the month of May wasn't very good for blogging - we had soccer 4 (sometimes 5) nights a week. I kept meaning to sit and write something, but it just didn't happen - so here we are - already into June and I am forcing myself to sit and write again.

I am preparing for family camp in a few weeks. Evidently, seeing as how I have 6 kids, they decided that I knew about being a family and have asked me to lead the chapel services. I am excited for the opportunity, but also a little overwhelmed at the prospect of 4 chapel services in 3 days while at the same time keeping up with church, work, and the occasional flooded basement.

The theme for camp this year is BOLD HUMILITY - based on Philippians chapter 2. As I have been thinking about this - I have realized a few things. If you simply read the first 11 verses of Philippians chapter 2 - it is easy to fall into the trap of thinking that humility is simply love love, joy joy, do whatever you can to make other people happy, put their needs and desires ahead of your own, etc. While that all sounds good, we can't skip the next section of chapter 2 in which we are encouraged to stand as "blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation among whom you shine as lights in the world."

Sometimes we are so worried about not offending someone that we are willing to overlook their faults and grey areas. We think this is being humble peacemakers - but in reality it is being a spineless wimp.

Yes we need to offer grace to people, but we also need a full measure of truth. Grace without truth leads to disasterous results - truth without grace leads to harsh judgementalism.

When we are standing in the dark and all of a sudden a bright light is turned on. It isn't very pleasant - especially when it shines right in our eyes - but when the bright light illuminates the ground before us, our eyes adjust and we are thankful for what the light reveals. That is a picture of how grace and truth work toghether. The light is the truth, the grace shines it on the path that we need to take rather than abrasively in our face.

That's enough for today - more to follow soon.