Likewise you
younger people, submit yourselves to your elders. Yes, all of
you be submissive to one another, and be clothed with humility, for
"God resists the proud, But gives grace to the
humble." Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God,
that He may exalt you in due time. I Peter 5:5-6
The most important thing that we can
take from these verses is the understanding and the knowledge, the belief
and the conviction, that humility is a choice. Peter says, "Humble
yourself!" We can choose to go the right way, and when we do, we have
humbled ourselves. Humility is not a feeling but a state of mind wherein a
person sets his course to submit to God—regardless of his feelings.
This is a terribly hard thing to do.
Along these lines, fasting makes
us think about where our life-sustaining provisions come from. They are not
inherent but have to come from outside of us—even the physical food,
water, or air. We do not have self-sustaining life. Spiritual provision is
from exactly the same source. The necessities that sustain spiritual life
and produce the kind of strength that we want to have—the sense of
well-being that we desire, along with a clear conscience—all of these
vital "nutrients" come from God. They are
directly tied to our submission to Him because "God resists the proud, but
gives grace [favor, gifts] to the humble."
If we are waiting for a
"feeling" to come along before we submit to God, we will be waiting a long
time. It may come; it may not. However, we may use feeling in the
sense of a decision that is reached. When we say that we "felt" we had to go
in a certain direction, we may not be speaking of an emotion at all. In that
case, our "feeling" is correct and would be a right understanding of I Peter 5:5-6.
Nevertheless, our part in settling the disagreement with God is to be
humble before Him. The separation will not be bridged until we do what Adam
and Eve did not: humbly submit!

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