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Teresa D. Glenn

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Choosing Counsel

“All of you, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, because, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.”  (1 Peter 5.5)

I desperately NEED grace.  I definitely want God’s favor.  He has promised it to me.  And yet, I struggle still.

One day I realized that I am potentially the most influential teacher that my children have, since they are with me so much. They experience my character ALOT—and that’s not always a good thing, or a nearly good thing, unfortunately.

On the hour, it seems, I have to decide to be humble or be prideful.  So, when we have conflict – because I’m enforcing a boundary or because they have abused a boundary, I have to decide in that moment who my counsel is—my self or my God.

When I choose my own counsel, I determine to conquer and win the moment. I go with my immediate and pent-up feelings, which often include some mixture of fear(of not having control), hurt and anger. Then add some fatigue, and we’ve made dynamite! My words and actions are a reaction to my child’s words or actions. At first, my reaction feels good, but eventually an empty feeling, a dead feeling comes. Do I want a dictator/child relationship? I exercised authority — but what did I accomplish, in the eyes of God?

“When pride comes, then comes disgrace, but with humility comes wisdom. (Proverbs 11.2)

When I choose God as my counsel, my next step is usually hard because I’m choosing to try to be humble (counting on a lot of grace from God!).  This means I don’t react in like manner to my child’s outburst; I respond, remembering she’s the child – I’m the grown up.  Well, that’s hard if I’ve got a really good comeback line!

Being humble also means, admitting I’m wrong when I am AND asking my child to forgive me. Honestly, that’s so hard for me, and I wish it wasn’t.  At times, I have wrongly accused a child, yet once I saw that I was wrong, I wanted to brush over it like nothing happened.  I finally came to see my pride and the effect of this dismissal on my child.  Finally, if I know my position is right, being humble means listening, not doing all the talking, so I meet my child where he is and bring him along from that point.

O Lord, you’ve been so patient with me! Thank you. I want to be a humble leader for my children. Please assist me with Your grace. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

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