"Right Spirit Maintenance" Part 1

Create in me a clean heart: O God; and renew a right spirit within me. Psalm 51:10

I believe that in order to deal with weakness you really should bring that weakness out into the open and confront it. Unfortunately, it is not an warm-fuzzy thing to do.

I’ve been commended a whole lot lately on being an “open” person. Which still kind of strikes me as odd because I’ve always felt that I usually don’t share half of what I’m thinking or feeling. In any case, there have been people that have been impressed with my willingness to share my thoughts and convictions on things. But there’s always this fear that accompanies me after I leave an “involved” conversation - that I’ve shared too much of myself, that I’ve opened myself up to ridicule or left a door open wide enough to get hurt. So the praise I’ve received this past year has been a great comfort to me. 

However, I’ve been thinking. What good is it to be an “open person” if you’re only ever open about the things that you know you can talk eloquently about, or that you’re convicted on, or that make you feel like a strong and smart person? It’s easy to talk about things like that. It’s easy to be open about good things. But if I want to stay true to the praise I’ve received and not fall into pride then I think I need to be willing to consider being open when I’m struggling with weakness or with any topic that might not necessarily feel stellar to converse about.

Lately I’ve discovered a nagging pride issue that’s been hindering me and because I want to try to be brave enough to confront it I’m going to put myself out here and write about it. Kind of scary, but it seems like it’s what I'm supposed to do.