Saturday, March 19, 2011

Vanity


I have been meaning to write this blog all week, excited about that the Lord is going to show me as I write it. It's so stupid that it took me to Saturday to make time for this. I am sorry Lord. I need to be more intentional, and I can not afford to forget that truth. I live, we live! in such an overly busy and many times falsely "hectic" culture. False because very seldom do we stress out over things that merit such investment of our time, and emotional stress. Now that I am aware of this battle on the plains of my heart I need to fight it, and fight it with intentionality. If I know I am going to be busy tomorrow, then I need to go to bed early tonight so I can intentionally have time to spend with the Lord.


Any who my intentions for this post is not about intention. But about something else that the Lord has been showing me about my heart. Ever since 3 weeks ago when Darin had us read that print out about repentance and confession. At first while reading through it I didn't really sink in. The Lord has done A LOT in my heart this past year. I heard whispers of the enemy saying, "you have already learnt all of this... this offers you nothing you don't already know. This is probably for the others now you" That last statement was what made me realize these are thoughts were not my own, and definitely not from God. So I prayed what the Lord would humble me and help me see through the lies to the truth of the situation.


After Circles I hung out with some friends from church. A bunch of us met up out in LA to see the Groundlings perform (if you are unaware they are a sketch comedy club, a lot of SNL guys come from there). After we went to dinner at this really cool place with the best name EVER! It was called Frankie's Place! haha it was cool. In fact Frankie was there to greet everyone, and he was quite pleased to meet another Frankie, as was I. I though I was having fun, but on the drive home my friend texted me and basically told me in that I was an ass to her all evening. Sorry for the language, but that word communicates best on how I was acting. "Jerk" or "mean" just doesn't cut it. At first my ego flared up, an instant later I felt the Lord place his hand on my heart to quiet it. He was then able to tell me that it was pride.


From that moment the Lord has been showing me some of the deeper parts of my heart. The lesson I am learning now is how Vain I am. He is showing me how widespread this issue is in my heart, my ego, my art work, my weight, my perception of myself, my view of the world, and I am sure the list can go on. How it so goes against what the Lord is growing and developing in me. Both in my talents, with my artwork, and with my spiritual gifting, with discernment. Basically what I am learning is that Vanity is just a prettier form of pride. Pride gets in the way and take the Glory from God. So the less vanity there is the less pride there is, and the less pride there is the less of me there is, and the less of me there is the more of Him there is, and the more of him there is the more He can do. And that is just super cool.


And I have to be careful not to be VAIN enough to think this is an issue I face alone! ha ha the devil is so crafty, good thing God is smarter. :)


Please keep this issue in prayer for me. Thanks guys.



P.S. -I love you all.

10 comments:

  1. Beautiful. Something we all can learn from.
    Amen, Frankie.

    John 3:30

    The only way for Him to be glorified more through our lives is if we become less.

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  2. Thispost took guts, and I'm glad you got around to it. Thanks for being open aout a very personal struggle.

    Praying for you, Frankie

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  3. I am in this same struggle with you Frankie! You are not alone. I will be praying for you brother. My prayer for you is that God would transform you and you would find your identity in Him alone. Thanks for sharing :)

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  4. Praying for you in this :) Praise Him for revealing all of this to you. He is bringing you up out of it! And you are not alone.

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  5. Thank you for your honesty. I wrote about my wrestle with honesty this week, so this is very encouraging and dear to my heart. I will indeed be praying for you, but I also want to say that in writing this post you took a position of humility in your heart, so I will pray to increase that and yeah, you're great guy Frankie.

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  6. hey I am praying right now for you on this. and I do actually also want to encourage you that vanity or pride or whatever we will call it is not an issue you are flying solo on. as I read more and more of Slices' blogs, this is clearly a recurring theme. and I am most def there with you. pride masks itself in so many ways. that is for sure evident in my own life. thanks so much for sharing about this. satan works in our secrets and I am so glad you broke that bond so that you can be honest with yourself and others can freely hold you accountable. : ) yay for God being HUMBLE enough to show you this. He is so rad like this.

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  7. yay for recognizing the difference between hearing from the Lord and hearing from self or satan. the more we get to know who God is and what He sounds like the more apt we are to recognize His voice and what He is doing in and around us. praying He will continue to illuminate the parts of your heart that are fully committed to Him and heal the parts that aren't.

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  8. awesome. thanks so much for sharing. i'm seeing a bit of this in my life too, so thank you for being blameless about it--putting it all out on the table. also, i love groundlings. yes.

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  9. I really appreciate your writing this. Thank you for being so honest and open. Praying for you.

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