Taking every thought captive -- Humiliation

Was talking to Jessica about humiliation and she said this:

What is the prupose of the humiliation? We are told that Jesus suffered silent as a lamb before the shearers. but he had a purpose. He was there to sacrifice his life and to redeem all of us. He was allowing evil and corruption to run its course, but there is a difference between humility (since Jesus was always humble) and humiliation (He was not always humiliated.)
the purpose of humility seems in part to be so that we can serve God and hear Him better since when we are proud we cannot hear, but humiliation --to me-- seems to be the result of sin and not a good in and of itself. There was something greater and deeper which made Jesus stand silent before His accusers. Not just the desire to pass through humiliation.

Oh and think of Paul! Remember he endured humiliation to the point that he could then demonstrate the error of the soldier's ways for flogging a man without due process. He waited until they stretched him out and stripped him (quite humiliating) and then he made his comment, "Is it proper to treat a Roman citizen this way?"

Voila, humiliation there also served a purpose, but the concept of humiliation for humiliation's sake would otherwise seem to indicate that all humiliation is good humiliation because it ravages the soul but God is about healing the soul, not destroying it. He makes us human, not less than human. . .or rather He makes us more than human." 

Jesus' Brother, Jacob (called James in the Bible)  warns us against being double-minded. The reason is that having two thoughts create nothing and makes a person unstable. The desire to be healed, or to have good finances, or to be blessed in some way is strong but an underlying stronghold fighting against it stops the desire from coming to fruition even when God has already given the seed of healing. For instance, if someone wants to be blessed but also deeply distrusts success or thinks success leads to spiritual or emotional dangers, then there is double-mindedness. In this case, I wanted to be free from trouble but I also kept thinking that I hadn't been sufficiently humiliated.


I thought and thought and thought about it. Then it hit me that her differentiating  between humility and humiliation was really freeing... 


I feel as if humiliation was a  srtronghold in my soul- that something in me was saying I had to be humiliated; and  that stronghold kept   blessings away. I'm really seeing it. It was as if I Have been telling myself that haven't been humiliated enough and as long  as I kept  that up I was keeping away blessings. It was, in some ways, like a legalistic  person saying they hadn't been good enough, or hadn't done enough to earn a blessing, or hadn't done enough to be holy. I feel, in a great way, that I'm more open now  to  receiving miracles  and  blessings, because  she shed light on this dark idea and the light destroyed the  stronghold, or at least one of the strongholds that has been chaining me. 


So, so so many strongholds exist in the human mind that faith/hope/love and God's truth have to fight against. Praise God! I'm freer now. Ready to win lotto because I now feel I have had more than my share of humiliation and that I don't have to sit here taking it to build up my quota. Praise God!  Come blessings! Come! I am ready to be blessed. Thank you, Lord Jesus, for Jessica. 


Now, weirdly, my hubby has a "blessed enough" stronghold. While it was hard for me to believe that I had gained some sort of standard that made me free to be blessed, hubby had a stronghold which says, "I have been blessed enough. I had an idyllic childhood. Life was good for me." So, it's hard for him to pray for anything for himself because he just truly thinks that compared to all the poor folk in Africa or wherever, he really shouldn't be asking for anything because others more worthy should get it. What an odd stronghold combination for a married couple to have! No wonder it's been so difficult. 


These mental strongholds come into our minds in many ways. Hubby's probably came from being told to eat because the poor children in China were starving. Mine came from cruel upbringing and from a terrible nightmare I had where someone had peed on me and said to me, "I will teach you to be humble." In the dream I h ad fought this being and had said, "Making me humble isn't the same as humiliating me." And finally, Jessica has said something which makes me feel I am free at last from the curse put into my mind by that dream.


So now, hubby can say, "I want to be blessed. I trust myself to be blessed. I know I will take care of people if I get financially blessed. In addition, even if I had a great childhood, my family didn't. And since I am the head of the family, my feelings (of not having suffered as a kid therefore I should accept the sorrows of life) is a thought to be distrusted and repented of. 


And I can say, "I don't want to be humiliated anymore. I don't want to be humiliated by arrogant rich people, by social workers, by thin people. I don't want to be humiliated by anyone else because humiliation is not of God." 


So... what then is true humility? Humility is simply accepting God's words and God's divine order. It's believing what God says about us instead of falling into the lies that the pride of life, the human eyes, human rationality, and human judgement. 


So...am feeling free. 







-C