Lent: Day Four

St. Benedict gives us the allegory of Jacobs Ladder as a model for humility (see Day Three). The first rung of that ladder, or the first step toward humility, the starting point is:

REMEMBER THAT THERE’S ONLY ONE GOD AND IT’S NOT YOU.

Actually, he says: “The first degree of humility, then, is that a man always have the fear of God before his eyes,” and then he references Psalm 36:2, which basically says that when we close our eyes to the fear of God, then our hearts are directed by sin.

“Fear of the Lord” or “fear of God” is one of those things that leads to misunderstanding and resentment. A lot of people (often fellow-Catholics) tell me that the God they heard about as a child was a mean, angry God who inspired fear. So as adults, they have either rejected the Church, or God, or the Bible, or whatever because they don’t want an arbitrarily abusive parent for their God�"at least, that’s how I hear what they are saying to me. But the “fear” is not like fear of spiders, or fear of snakes, or fear of your abusive, alcoholic father, but a reverence, which even though it is still a synonym for fear, it seems to carry with it a more positive element of “veneration,” or “an awe-inspired respect.”

But to me, all of this means, as I have summed up above, FEAR OF THE LORD = REMEMBERING I’M NOT GOD. It means remembering my place in the scheme of things: I am the creature, not the Creator; I am the servant, not the one who is served; I am disciple, not the Master; I follow God, I don’t play God; and so on.

So, the way I understand it, if I want to follow the Lord’s command to be humble, then the first step I need to take is to recognize that I’m not the one in charge. I have to stop playing God because it certainly demonstrates a lack of humility when I do, but more than that, it demonstrates a lack of faith in God. I am only playing God because I don’t trust God�"either I don’t trust Him, or I don’t trust Him to keep his promises, or I don’t trust His plans for me, but regardless of how I express it, it comes down to the simple fact that I don’t have the faith to trust that God is really in charge, that His will is playing out in all the processes that comprise my life, and as a result, I feel that I have to take matters into my own hands and try to control everything in my life�"or at least what is important to me.

So, we can also say that the first step in humility is accepting “I am not in control,” or even, “It’s not my job to be in control,” or possibly, “Trying to control ______ (fill in the blank) is above my pay grade.” So the first step is for me to remember that there is a God and it’s not me. God is in control, not me. There are things I have control over in my life, and there are things that I only have varying degrees of influence over, but most things in my life are not in my control, and often, I discover that those things I thought were in my control, or those things over which I exert influence, we never really in my control or influence, and any control or influence I thought I had was only an illusion.

But I guess it is as simple as there are things in my life I accept, and things in my life I don’t. I really don’t notice the things in my life that I accept because I’m busy accepting them. Anything I have to tell myself to accept, or when I “make a decision to accept” something, I am not accepting, because if I were accepting it, I would for the most part just be living with it without noticing. So, those things I don’t accept, there only two possibilities: can it be changed, or can it not be changed? If it can be changed, and I don’t accept it, I should change it; but if it can’t be changed, and I don’t accept it, trying to change it is futile�"and this is where I get in trouble with control, and when I start playing God.

When there is something that I don’t accept, and which cannot be changed, this is something that is out of my control. So my default setting seems to be to try to control it. But if it’s out of my control, I cannot control it; in fact, trying to control it only makes it more out of control. My response is to then is to try to control it more, making it more uncontrollable, making me try to control it more, and so on and so on until I make myself bitter, frustrated, tired, resentful, angry, and totally, totally, totally insane.

So the simple rule is: anything that I have to try and control is already out of my control. Whenever I am trying to control anything, I am admitting two things: 1) It’s beyond my control, so trying to control it will only make it worse and me more and more spiritually sick; and 2) I am playing God, which means I am not trusting in God. By the way, this includes worrying because worrying is the absurd idea that I can control what is beyond my control simply by force of my will.

So again, the first step toward humility: there’s a God, it’s not me, or we can say, the first step is to stop playing God and let God be God. St. Benedict has some things to say about how to help doing that, or as he says, how to keep the fear of the Lord before our eyes, but that can wait until tomorrow.

What can I do today to quantify and live this first step? Whereas the last two days seemed to be more stuff I can to when relating to others, this one seems like things I can do within myself. The first step to humility appears to be an inside job.

1) Make a list of what I cannot control in my life by answering four questions (or fill it out as four columns) What am I trying to control? How am I (or how have I been) trying to control it? What about me makes me need to control it (Pride, fear, selfish, etc.)? How has me controlling it made it worse?

2) Tell myself over and over that “Anything I have to control is already beyond my control.”

3) Before I do anything (drive, work, read, talk, Anything) ask God to bring it into His perfection, which is into His will.

4) When I catch myself worrying about anything or trying to control anything, I can remind myself that I am playing God and ask God to take care of whatever I am worrying about. God is God, not me. If I cannot just ask God to take it, then I keep praying for God to take it and bring it into His perfection over and over again, reminding myself that if I have to control it is out of my control.

5) Pray the Serenity Prayer. The short form goes like this God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; the courage to change the things I can; and the wisdom to know the difference.” (Pray it out loud so I can hear it.) I can also pray the prayer “filling in the blanks” as in “...grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, such as _______________” (fill in the blank); “...the courage to change the things I can, such as __________________” (fill in the blank); and doing that demonstrates the wisdom to know the difference. There is a long form which is also good for those of us with a Christological bent to us and it can be found at this link: http://www.kogcc.net/index.php?p=1_23_Kingdom-God-Christian-Community-Ministry-South-New-Jersey-Salem-County-Ebook-audio-subliminal-prosperity-faith-healing-blessing

6) Pray the alternative form of the Serenity Prayer: God, grant me the serenity to accept the people I cannot change; the courage to change the one I can; and the wisdom to know it’s me.”

7) Pray the super-short version of the Serenity Prayer: God, get into my head today before I do.”

As usual, this is just a starting point. I’m sure others will be able to add to this list. But the point is, as I go about my day, I am giving up control which means that when people, events, circumstances, or anything else aren’t doing what I want them to do, or they aren’t going my way, I let them go the way they are going by doing one or more of the above.

But the point is: I cannot begin to be humble if I’m busy playing God. If I have to play God, then I have little or no faith in God, and the place to begin is by praying for faith, or for God to increase my faith. As let go of things and give them to God, then my faith increases and I play God less, which means I can begin to grow in humility.