Instead
“Lord, my heart is not proud; my eyes are not haughty.
I don’t concern myself with matters too great or too awesome for me to grasp.
Instead, I have calmed and quieted myself, like a weaned child who no longer cries for its mother’s milk.
Yes, like a weaned child is my soul within me.” Psalm 131: 1-2
This is the person I long to be.
Instead of hungering for attention, I want to hunger for humility.
Instead of looking out for me only, I want to reach out to a stranger.
Instead of thinking I have it all figured out, I want to accept my weaknesses and look to Him for strength.
Instead of meditating on worry, I want to be consumed with Gods truths.
Instead of envy, I want to find contentment.
Instead of rebellion, I want obedience
Instead of just saying all of this, I want to pursue am pursuing these things.
I am living them out…
inProgress 
oooohhhh very good. 😉 Chills good. 😉
In the desire to help you achieve your most worthy Goal as described Tam, please accept the following caution….
Read what you wrote.
Check the major difference between your words and those you quoted from Scripture.
In case you miss my meaning…. I am, I am, I am (all negatives) I want, I want, I want.
In scripture the person talking OWNS what he aims for ( or she aims for? ;-)) You place yourself in your writings ( thoughts)separate to what you ‘want’ to have ( in some undetermined future date).
The person in scripture has developed those abilities they state they already have ( they OWN them within themselves and their thought).
Understand this well…. You already HAVE what you are saying you want – all you need to really do is to now learn to keep the infrequent and too-short (by your own harsh judgement)moments you LIVE those qualities into longer and longer periods until you ARE those things all the time and not just in rare moments of your life. Do it with His help but KNOW that you ARE that which you believe you ‘lack’ already – all you need to do is ‘expand’ them from within you.
Follow me?
Be more gentle with your self – see things with less of a negative perspective – you are perfect – and getting better daily in some respects – improve that if you can! 🙂
i might have a slightly ( only VERY slightly) biased view 🙂
love
this is one of my favorite verses…. truly. that whole quieting myself thing, well, its just so dang hard!
love you
I was gonna say, “Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man” but I think lwbut said it quite well.
Understanding that you ARE perfect in God’s eyes right now; while owning how deeply committed you are to your own agenda; and reconciling these two truths -that’s the key to the abundant life He promises us.
Amen!
I love to pursue and chase after God.. it’s a daily thing but I know I will see God’s Goodness in it.
This verse always reminds me Where I have been, Where I have gone, and Where i am now.
“I no longer wonder or worry, God has me in the cusp of His hand. It took me MANY years to get there TOTALLY.
Okay maybe not totally all the time. 🙂
Love you!!!
After reading these comments and after much self reflection and honest evaluation I realized that I am living this out. Even if for only short moments at a time. This is where my heart wants to live – what I truly long for. I’ve known I need to be more disciplined – and with that will come longer “moments” of all i pursue in chasing Gods will and heart.
So, Love and Bad, I edited my last lines to better reflect me. I think it better reflects most of us!
I read this as a longing for more moments (longer moments?) … kinda poetically written at that. The bible also has laments where the author, in the moment of being gripped by the spirit sees their walk through God’s eyes and he is humbled.
I have moments like those described by the psalmist… but then my alarm clock goes off …
Striving with you sister! No one is accomplished in this totally or they would be dead-perfected in the heavenlies 😆
I love your heart and this is exactly where I want to be too more often than I am! Love you have an awesome day!
I have to confess – I ate at McDonalds today. It was just a dbl cheeseburger…and I did’t supersize it…it was such comfort food, and oh so good.
I’ve got so far to go….
OOOOOO Bad! You’re bad! Would it make you feel better if I had a dbl cheeseburger for lunch? I will gladly fail with you. Ya know, take one for the team 😀 I commend you for your confession 😉
Darla – I like to call us perfect in progress! that’s what we are! i can not wait to see who we become on the other side!
It’s not just a clever name…
Luther said to sin boldly, so if I were you I’d go for the 1/4lb’er!
I am tagging you!
🙂
angela
“I have calmed and quieted myself, like a weaned child who no longers cries for it’s mother’s milk.”
I agree these words have great wisdom to them. We need to grown beyond that spoiled, self centered child we are born in to the world as. Something I need to continue to work at.
“Lord, my heart is not proud, my eyes are not haughty”
Depending on how we use the word, pride can be both a good or bad thing. Having pride in ones work is to me important. In the business world it is, I think better, to make sure your boss knows what a great job your are doing. Of course once you get their attention you had better be able to back up your words.
In personal life I agree boastful pride is a character flaw, and something I have been guilty of too often.
“I don’t concern myself with matters too great or too awesome for me to graps.”
I may be misinterpreting this line. I accept there are many things I will never understand, such as the female mind. 🙂 I don’t believe however there is any matter/problem too great, or too awesome, that I should not at least attempt to gain a better understanding of. I believe anything is possible. I may not be the one to succeed, and it may take 1,000 years or more, but nothing is beyond human understanding.
The day we humans stop trying to understand the world we live in is the day we become extinct.
Dear #7,
Am honoured you took my ( and bad’s) advice 🙂
I fear i may not have made my ‘concern’ as clear as i might have.
When you say ‘I want’ it is you saying ‘I do not yet have’ and would like to get. ( We as parents respond to our children saying ‘I want’ by fulfilling their need ( if we think it is ok to) or giving them a reason why they cannot get what they ask for)
“The Lord helps those who help themselves” is an oft-repeated scriptural quote and is very accurate – especially in regards to your stated need in the post.
He will help you in your earnest prayer if you have the state of mind that says… I already HAVE – not: I want you to give me something i don’t yet have)
So in all things Tam think that you already have the basic thing you seek ( if you know enough to ask for it then somewhare in you those things already exist – you have experienced them at one time or another ( perhaps even only one time – but that one time is enough).
By all means ask for Jesus’s help ( God’s aid) to Increase that within you which you seek to do more often – have the mindset which lets God incrrease it within you in preference to one which says ‘I don’t yet have that which i seek’ ( at all).
it might seem like an insignificant difference, but it will, when learned, make a massive difference to the life you live and help you grow in Him.
‘I want’ – bad. “Lord, Help me do more (of)…” – good!
Got iit? Good! 🙂
love
Love, What I’m saying is this is what I ALWAYS want. I know that I live these things out…some of the time. But I long to live them out ALL of the time.
“The Lord helps those who help themselves”
That’s actually not a verse in the bible. Go here to read about its origin…
http://www.gotquestions.org/God-help-themselves.html
Hi Ed –
“The day we humans stop trying to understand the world we live in is the day we become extinct.”
Yes, we can try. But there are many things i will never get. And although I will not understand why some people do the things they do I will choose to love, I will choose to reach out, I will choose to honor God by serving and loving others even if i don;t understand them or agree.
I hear you Tam…what you wrote and your comments ring true to my experience too. Praying with you…
I want to be like you when I grow up.
Thank You for the correction Tam! 🙂
I DO understand WHAT it is that you desire, truly I do. I still feel however, that by phrasing it to yourself (and to others but more importantly in your own head) the way you have is making the achievement of that desire a little more difficult for Him and for you.
The referred page explains the idea behind helping vs doing something FOR someone else ( God doing) it fails to explain that it is also possible for us, besides INactivity, to exercise (perhaps unintentionally but no less functionally) NEGATIVE activity – pushing what we wish for further away from us.
Again, ‘I Want’ is a negative phrase that does not aid us get our desire by making it easier for God to bring our desire to our life in Him, it reinforces our life of lack on earth by saying right NOW (the most important time for prayer to actually work or start working from) i do not have this thing – it is NOT who i AM right NOW!
Some phrases that are better than “I want” could be…
I grow more…
I live as…
I have more…
My____ increrases daily…
If you add “God helps me as..’ or
“God Ensures that..” before each line or
“…. In Jesus Name”. at the end of each declaration then you remind your ego that these events occur because of the Spirit and not by sole reason of the efforts of the ego/self.
I feel these are habits that help Him help us in learning to Live.
I believe that what we do either increases Him in us or decreases Him.
Asking in the form of ‘I want…” or “i would like to have…” definitely decreases Him in our own mind.
Herendeth the flogging of this particular deceased equine. 😉
love
“Instead of envy, I want to find contentment.”
I just found out last night that my best friend is getting a 59 inch flat panel t.v. That dirty…. See, I wish this stuff mattered less to me. 😉
you stole my heart on this one.
I love this so much just like it is…here is my reason why-
It is very beautiful (just like you), and it is very transparent and real, which in itself is more beautiful. We are to be satisfied in HIM, but we are also to want more of HIM and less of ourselves. As far as saying “Lord I want…” this is the kind of “I want” HE wants to hear. and it is within HIS perfect will to answer this type of prayer. HE said “you have not because you ask not”…content with being in progress, discontent that makes us press on. Love you Princess!!
me to tam! I get so sick of me!! I was just thinking that this morning as I was reading 2 peter. love you!
Isn’t it exciting to let Christ work in us so He can work through us!
great thoughts! Thanks!
I think stating I want more of something doesn’t imply I don’t have some of “it” already. That’s why I want more. I’ve already experienced it and know enough to want more of it. I can’t have enough of God in my life, of desiring what He desires for me. I will always want more. I can live here for an eternity and still long for more and more…He is THAT good!
😉
I want more?
I’m sorry – exactly where in your ‘creed’ do you include the word ‘more’???
Did you leave it out intentionally? because you know and understand it is actually implied? Or did your mind just ‘forget’ to include it?
When something is pointed out to us we often say ‘of course… i knew that!’ but at the time our minds were not thinking that way at all.
We fool ourselves daily and remain not only blissfully unaware HOW we do it – we even try to argue that we don’t!
You never used the word ‘more’ after any ‘I want’ Tam – that was how your mind WAS thinking at the time you wrote what you did – even after i tied to point out the ‘omission’. An Omission of truth is about the same as a lie – our politicians do it intentionally all the time and we accuse them of lying – we do it unintentionally and then pretend we didn’t really do it.
Forgive me – but this kind of ‘stuff’ is TRULY important to us all – so very few ever try to understand just why that is.
with
love
LOVE –
“Instead of hungering for attention, I want to hunger for humility.”
I am not solely one or the other simply because I omitted the word “more” initially. I have the potential to be fully one or the other – but I am not. I long for humility ONLY. In me exists a lot of humility. And I DO want more. I always want more. Anyone who knows me knows that already. In me also exists a desire to be noticed. I want less of that. So “instead” of one, I want the other…only! So I didn’t use all the right words…maybe I’m not #7 after all 😉 I understand to say “I want” implies that I don’t have. That was not my intent at all. But it doesn’t make me a liar…is that what you’re implying?
Dearest Tam,
ok – i need to answer that one directly and immediately.
Through Him (and blogs and emails) i am your brother – you are my sister and i love you dearly and constantly feel the same back from you.
I KNOW it was NOT your intent to make out that you don’t have already what you said you ‘wanted’.
My belief is that we ALL lie – most especially and crucially TO OURSELVES! ALL – OF – US!! No Exceptions!
We do it without being aware of it most of the time.
What we intend is almost never what we really actually ‘do’.
Our mind is truly not very good at certain things – essential to our lives things – it is ‘corrupted’ and so corrupts almost every single thing we do – to one degree or another – and at many levels.
I do not claim to be immune to this – i claim to be more highly conscious of this and how we all do it to ourselves than the great majority of mankind.
Believe me – despite your best intentions – if you constantly read and repeated to yourself what you actually wrote above – your mind would more and more adopt the term ‘want’ (not want more) and convince you subliminally every single day of what you DON’T Have ( reinforcing it) instead of what you ‘intend’ to get for yourself (with His help).
This is because of the way our conscious mind pays less and less attention to what it sees daily while the subconscious ( which is responsible for our deepest levels of feeling and understanding which then determine how our conscious behaves) works on what is seen in an unemotional and dispassionate/uncritical/un-analytical fashion.
THIS is how we ‘lie’ to ourselves (ONE common way at any rate)
I would have that you become more aware of this in order to better defend yourself against it.
I do not believe you intend to lie to yourself and i especially don’t believe you willingly choose to lie to any other.
I believe most of us – all of us at one time or another – don’t have the awareness to make the choice not to.
Understand that it not simply a matter of ‘bad’ grammar or choosing the ‘wrong’ words – I would never try to insist anyone only speak with perfection; our schooling is not the important thing here – it is about the way our minds actually work to achive goals – very important goals for our life here – and hereafter.
I commend your most worthy intent – i hope i have helped you understand a little of why i felt concern for what you actually wrote and others could read and copy for themselves?
love
“What we intend is almost never what we really actually ‘do’”
isn’t that the truth! Huge struggle for me there. Working on this daily!
Garbage in – Garbage out. What we put into our minds is what we become. In light of that, I understand totally that even subconsciously we inadvertently condition our minds with negative thoughts, whether carelessly or unintentionally. I see that. I get that. Makes sense.
Romans 12:2 …but let God transform you into new person by changing the way you think…
I would so love to share discussion with you on ways that verse works… and the things within us that make it harder to! 🙂 On how He and we can work together to make it more possible within each of us.
love ( always)
Ooh, good post!!