Dot 1 Start Here There was something hidden in my life that God wanted to bring into focus so He began to arrange circumstances in my life so that I would see what He saw.
Dot 2 God’s desire is to transform me into His image and is always pointing me in the direction that will give me the information I need to truly see myself and change. He doesn’t just wave a magic wand and make me perfect but He allows me the joy of discovery. God had put in my heart a desire to do a study on humility. I read Slave by McArthur, Absolute Surrender by Murray and then the Power of Humility by Kendall. I read James 4: 6 But he giveth more grace. Wherefore he saith, God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble” and other scriptures on pride versus humility and I proudly said Amen! Each book brought out some excellent points that I concurred with wholeheartedly and the scripture was perfectly clear on where God stood on the issue of pride. I was certainly amassing a large volume of really good information to share with others.
Dot 3 God is not interested in my intellectual agreement. He wants personal and practical application that brings change. Mine came on a pretty typical hot and muggy Thursday in August with just the ordinary list of things that needed to be done. I mentor a 7th grade girl named Angel and I had arranged to meet her for lunch. During our conversation over our McDonalds’ hamburgers, she mentioned that the day before had been her birthday. I was so upset with myself for having missed her birthday. Why wasn’t that on my calendar? How did I let that slip? I pride myself in remembering birthdays and special occasions. So not like me. I came home and later in the afternoon went out to get my mail and there was my gas bill. Nothing unexpected as it was time for it to be due. I opened it up and it said I owed twice as much as I had expected. I am on budget billing so it wasn’t like I had just used more this month. How could this be? I pride myself in paying bills on time. I ran and got my check register (yes I am still balancing my own check book and paying my bills with checks and that is a blog for another day) and there it was. I had written the check for my gas bill so why did they say I owed? I would have to call and straighten this out. They had apparently made a mistake. Then…I looked in my little basket where I put my outgoing mail. When I receive a bill and it isn’t due for two or three weeks, I write the check, put the due date in the corner, and mail it 7 days before it is due. I pride myself in being very efficient. Somehow some cards had gotten put in front of the bills. Yes, not just my gas bill but three or four other bills. They were all late. I jumped in the car and took them personally to the post office so they would go out ASAP.
Dot 4 At some point there are enough dots to know what image is being made and dot 4 was my aha moment. As I was rehashing all this with God, I heard myself say, “I PRIDE MYSELF!” There it was. PRIDE was what this dot-to-dot picture was going to reveal. This was my connect-the-dots between the sin God saw in me and was teaching me through His word, through books, and through my everyday experiences. Before we can be humble, we have to see our pride. My pride still wanted to say that I had just a little pride in my life but that is like saying you are a little pregnant. Throughout the next week God brought to my mind one area after another where “I PRIDE MYSELF.”
Dot 5 Without God no life picture will ever be completed. Unless I connect with God and allow Him to bridge the gap between my sin and His transforming power my life will never reveal the completed picture that God sees. I now had the revelation that God saw pride in me, allowed me to gather information, opened my eyes so I could see what He saw, and then invited me to connect with Him.
Dot 6 Do you remember the joy of finishing a dot-to-dot picture as a child and proclaiming what the dots revealed? Well, my joy was not in the fact that there was pride in my life since these were only six dots among the millions it will take to finish my picture but my joy was in knowing that my life is not just a bunch of random dots. All my life experiences have purpose and meaning that God desires to connect so that one day my completed life picture will be revealed. I am so thankful that God sees me as a work in progress and is not finished with me yet. He is still connecting dots.
“The more you find of the truth about your own self, the more you will be set free…free from improper evaluations of your worth, free from false pride that seeks to cover recognized flaws. You cannot be truly humble until you have a deep sense of being loved” Come Away My Beloved by Frances Roberts
So are there some supposedly random dots in your life that God is trying to get you to connect? Take a little time today and connect some dots and see what God wants to reveal to you.
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