Humility

"The reward of humility and the fear of the LORD are riches, honor, and life."
Proverbs 22:4 NAS

If you remember, I wrote about my word for 2016. It's humble, or humility. Well, in my daily Proverbs reading, I came across the Scripture posted above.

This is not a "if you, God will" prosperity Scripture. I believe it's a promise. God is telling us that if we stay humble, and stay in awe of Him, that our reward will be riches, honor, and life.

Does this mean that if you don't stay humble and in awe of God that you will be poor, dishonored and die? NO! It does not.

God gave us all free will. He allows us to choose to live for Him or not. He did create a God shaped void in our life that only He can fill...hoping that we would choose Him. But if He forced us to love Him, He would have just been created robots, so what's the point?

In my opinion, staying humble means I am allowing God to be the Lord of my life. I am not taking things into my own hands. I am not puffed up and proud. I am not being hard headed and trying to live life my own way. I am simply living for Him.

Being in awe, reverencing, and having the "fear of the Lord", is simply recognizing His place of authority over everything. (That includes us humans.) It's knowing that He is Creator, and we are His creation. It's realizing just how BIG and awesome He is. 

So, if by living a humble reverent life bring riches, honor, and life, why do we not live that way?

Some people would rather just do their own thing. They don't like authority and rebel every chance they get. 

If they would only understand the truth that God loves them, that He has a plan for their life and it's a plan to prosper them, not harm them... I think they would give Him a chance.

A lot of people blame God for things He didn't do. He shouldn't be blamed for all of the bad stuff that happened in your life. He didn't cause it, and He didn't want it to happen to you. Remember those people who use their free will to not live for God? Yeah, those are the ones that do bad things to good people. 

Will you work on being humble and reverencing God this year? What will that look like for you?

Do you have a word for 2016? What is it? Have you found any Scripture references for it? I think that's what I'm going to do.. look up some more verses on humility and see what I find. I think focusing on the word like this, in Scripture, and through prayer is a great way to stay focused on it during the year. I'd love to hear your's.

God bless you today and always.