Wounded Pride and Thwarted Dreams

“Godliness with contentment is great gain.”  I Timothy 6:6
    
“Much of your energy is wasted on wounded pride and thwarted dreams,” were the words of my devotional this morning that jumped off the page and pierced my very soul.

In this recent season of life I have felt misunderstood by others, but instead of taking these hurts to Jesus, I fed my wounded pride with self-pity to the point of completely falling apart.  In one situation, I lost my temper and was very hurtful with my words! My reaction was out of proportion to the situation, and this was a result of stored hurts that had compiled over time. I had not been taking every thought captive nor trusting God. In my anger, I chose to sin, and seeing this anger come flowing from my inmost parts brought me to my knees. I started out angry at others and ended up more angry at myself. In some little country church far from home, I found myself on my face crying out to God and asking Him to show me where I belong.  “This road I am traveling seems far too difficult Lord!  I must be going the wrong way.  How can I get where I am going on an easier and safer path?”  

After I calmed down a bit, I decided that surely God must have something to say to me.  I looked for a Bible in the pew, and all I could find was an old hymnal.  I opened it and came right to the song entitled, “The way of the cross leads home.”  How had I forgotten that the way home, to that place of rest, safety and security, is only through the cross?  Somehow these words brought me the most profound comfort.  It may be a hard road I am traveling, but that doesn’t mean it is the wrong road.  My Savior walked the Calvary Road.  

Over the past several months I have cried more tears of sorrow before God and men, and I have cried out in frustration more than perhaps any other time in my life.  Why is God allowing so much pain and loss in this season of my life?  Why am I so weak so much of the time? And why, in such a stormy season, is God allowing me to be misunderstood and misrepresented by others around me?  

I want so much to be free, yet I make too many internal choices to keep myself bound in my own “wounded pride.”  In my oversensitivity, I magnify the degree of injury and fail to take each issue of pain and hurt to Jesus soon enough. God has been showing me that my demand to be understood and loved by all those in my life all the time is really just a lack of humility and trust in God.  My demand to be loved and understood is really my own pride and an unwillingness to wait on God’s timing.  True freedom comes from walking God’s way…in praise and peace, humility, trust, love and contentment.  

Seeking our safety and security in anything other than God is an idolatry that leads to bitterness and depression.  Hope placed in anything or anyone other than God is misplaced hope that will provide a foothold for the Enemy to step into our lives and bring us down emotionally, mentally and spiritually. “Poor me” does not draw me to the cross…it just leads me into a “pity party” all by my lonesome.  Focusing on my wounded pride and thwarted dreams had fueled a tendency in me to withdraw from others emotionally and to withhold real love and truth out of my own fear of getting hurt, and that just made me depressed and lonely.  

Sitting in that church I knew that if was to survive the journey upon this road, I must be covered and empowered by His grace as much as possible.  Grumbling, complaining, self-pity and pride will always cut off His grace in my life. The Calvary Road is the road of humility.  Clearly I had not chosen humility.  My temper and unkind words blatantly revealed that I had some real repenting to do before God and before men.  I remembered how Jesus was silent before his oppressors when he was being wrongly accused, and the only time he spoke up was not to defend Himself, but to proclaim the truth in love.  I was not silent – I chose to defend myself and demand to be understood.  I did not wait on God to defend me, and as a result I sinned greatly.  I started out with my heart demanding apologies from others and found myself now responsible to do the apologizing.  Because I desperately desired God’s grace in my life, I had to go and apologize without demanding an apology on the other side.  God’s grace by definition is His empowering presence, and His grace is given to the humble.  Humility says, “I am wrong. I’m sorry. Please forgive me!”    

Humility and gratitude are the keys that unlock the prisons that so often confine us! If I want God’s presence, then I must also choose to praise.  I realized that I focus far too much on those who are harming me rather than those who are loving me.  I realized that I focus on what I have lost and not on what I have been given.  I realized that I have chosen to compare myself to those who are in sin and not to the God who has called me to be like Him. My devotional this morning ended with these words, “Remember that gratitude and grumbling cannot dwell together.  Choose which shall reign in the depths of your heart and soul.”     

In my great self-love, I had forgotten one very important truth found in I Peter 5:6, to which I am now choosing to cling, “Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time” (I Peter 5:6).

Comments

[Lori]

Kerry,
Thank you for sharing this. God used it to prick my heart and encourage me. I am mother to 5, our youngest being a blessing through adoption with the help of Shaohannah's Hope. :)
I follow your blog regularly and sense a kindred spirit. I prayed for you tonight.
In Christ,
Lori in SC

[Mary]

Kerry, I was so touched by your post tonight - but I am touched by them every time. This one was especially meaningful for me. I am struggling to get along with a difficult coworker, and I did not stop to realize that my anger over her pride was deeply rooted in my own pride. Instead of waiting for her apology I need to be the one that extends the olive branch, to show her Christ thru my actions. The words are easy to type, but I struggle with doing what I know I should!

[emily tant]

again your message has so spoken to me at the perfect time! every one of your entries seems to hit me right where i need to be convicted-thank you. i want to meet you sometime when you're in franklin (it seems from your blogs you're here often??)-you seem like such a kindred spirit! thanks again

[Shane]

Amazing insights. What a great listener you are. I have been in a very similar place with God not too long ago. I truly felt like God was tripping me up on purpose (just to be mean). But, in His mercy, He is teaching me about His true nature. And it is nothing like the world gives. Which is why it's so hard to understand! But from this post, Kerry, it is clear that God has got you in the palm of His hand.

[Sarah Skees]

Ahhh Kerry. I'm sorry it's been so hard. But I am glad that God is faithful, and has been so very good to you. I know that you have been brought to your knees by these things, but I hope that you know how precious your heart of repentance is to God. And what an example it is to we who read your blog. It is visible to us in each of your posts. When God brings things to mind, you respond - it is so much more than I tend to do. It generally takes many more promptings for me to go where God is leading me... And then you openly share with us, without sparing yourself! That is truly a beautiful thing. So, thank you.

I also find it wonderful of God to minister to you (as he often does with me) through songs. Finding that hymn was such a neat thing. I have been greatly blessed by the Natalie Grant song "Held". While the words of the song refer to the pain of losing a child (which I know that you've suffered) it also can apply to all of the suffering that we go through in our lives - like what is happening to you, when they all pile up at the same time! I hope that your bruised heart and broken spirit may be soothed, and that you will have peace. May you know that in your brokenness and sorrow, you are HELD.

Some of the words to "Held" are:

Who told us we'd be rescued?
What has changed and why should we be saved from nightmares?
We're asking why this happens
To us who have died to live?
It's unfair.

This hand is bitterness.
We want to taste it, let the hatred numb our sorrow.
The wise hand opens slowly to lilies of the valley and tomorrow.

Bridge:
If hope is born of suffering.
If this is only the beginning.
Can we not wait for one hour watching for our Savior?

(Chorus)
This is what it means to be held.
How it feels when the sacred is torn from your life
And you survive.
This is what it is to be loved.
And to know that the promise was
When everything fell we'd be held.

[kathy naylor]

God has taken what was meant for evil and turned it for our good (this, your trial of humility).We who tend to mistakenly view those of you who seem privileged with divine insights and surrounded by loving family and friends, fail to realize what it costs, at times. -Just wanted you to know that your trial and pain again, turned for the good of The Body again.

[Beth H.]

Kerry,
I think you've been reading my journal! Thank you for sharing your personal journey so that others can be encouraged. You are a blessing!

Peace,
Beth

[Debbie from Ohio]

Thank you for sharing your thoughts. It can encourage others who go through the same things. Remember the poem about the "Footprints in the Sand?" It's those times that He is carrying you even when you feel you're all alone! God bless

[Mrs. H]

Well said. Thank you for sharing. The song "Free" by Shawn McDonald comes to mind. Only He can make us whole... His ways are right... in Him we're free -
It's easy to look elsewhere or depend on others, but never will we find the comfort and peace we can in Christ.
I too, have had to trust on His peace and He has given it to me!

[Darlee]

I just wanted to say that you've been on my mind a lot since I read this post. I will continue to pray for you.

Darlee

[Sandra]

I don't know what you're going through in total, but I know that God's way is best. I wrestle constantly, it seems, with a "defending" spirit -- and I know that it's pride that underlies all that. And, I know that God isn't honored when I react out of defensiveness and wounded pride. I pray for Christ's love in/through me, b/c I know that His pure love is free of self-interest. I can't figure out why He doesn't strike these qualities from me, knowing how I've let Him down so often, but I trust that He is using my feeble obedience in ways that only He knows and only He can work. Remember, "We have these treasures in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is of God" and not of ourselves. Couldn't be clearer in my life! :-) But, I trust that He takes my fishes and loaves, and multiplies them. I also think often that it's my very flaws that keep me clinging to Him, and I'm so grateful, in that sense, for the shortcomings in my life, if they keep me walking with Him.

Sorry for the long post -- just want you to know that you're not alone. Cling for all you're worth, and stay in the Word!

In Him,

Sandra

[Stacey Clark]

Kerry,
I want to thank you for the realness of your heart that you share with every devotion. You have written the very words that I have felt since walking with the Lord and as a ministers wife I have come to the conclusion that because we give so much of ourselves, our time, our heart, our everything to helping others we in return look for others to fulfill that need in us. Because we are human and like my son says so often, "mom I know Jesus is here, but I need some skin to touch when I am scared." We long for something tangeble that we can touch and feel with our hands but we are chosen to travel down a much different road that can be very lonely and dark at times. I too am learning that He is the only one that can fulfill that longing in my heart, when I can learn this He will bring other believers into my life! He is a jealous God and will not take 2nd place to anyone or anything...I am walking with you, sharing with you, praying with you, loving with you, and reaching with you Kerry! Thank you so much for every single word that you write!

[Yvonda]

Hi Kerry ... Wondering if you would share which devotional you were using when this blogimony came to you? I have to tell you that this one reached out, took me by the throat and wrestled me around on the ground a bit (with love of course:))!! Would love to know what book/devotional "Wounded Pride and Thwarted Dreams" can be found in. Thanks and (getting up off the floor now) God Bless!

[Kerry Hasenbalg]

Dear Yvonda,

The devotional in which I read the words about 'wasting energy on wounded pride and thwarted dreams' is called Listening to the Father (I) by Hal Helms - what we call the red book. Prior to Hal Helms own death I actually had the opportunity to meet this incredible man of faith. He spent much of his life translating devotional works by Francois Fenelon and ministering and counseling believers in a deeper walk with God. But in his personal devotional time, Hal spent a great deal of time listening to God and journaling what the Spirit was speaking to His heart. Sometime before he died, he agreed, after much encouragement, to allow his personal devotional entries to be published for the sake of the brethren who had been blessed by the words God was speaking to Hal. After Hal's death, his wife agreed to have more, if not all, of his other journal entries published. This second compilation was published in a book called Listening to the Father (II) - what we call the blue book. The entries are very short and my husband and I (and my mother and some of my closest girl friends) read both the blue book and the red book every day. They are super powerful nearly every single day! I think it was the red book which was the springboard for the blog to which you referred. You can get information on these books via recommended books on my blog in the ABOUT section. You won't be disappointed with these little powerful books. they are published by Paraclete Press. Thanks for inquiring! Kerry