Ah Sweet Irony

I'm trying too hard.

I used to be a blogger, y'see. Years ago, I posted daily. I had a decent following. Won an award or two.  I was linked on Thinklings!  I think I even got mentioned by Challies once.  But that was a LONG time ago.  I barely remember that girl, honestly. 

I had a few feeble flutters at blogging since then. One was during my prodigal phase.  Self-indulgent ooh-I'm-an-artist blatherings...it's mercifully gone now. (as is that phase, by the grace of God)  Tried another one and it was like a pair of boots that didn't quite fit..I clumped around in it for a step or two and it was abandoned.

I was still writing. Lots of journaling. Cantata scripts. Song lyrics. I'm even sketching out something of a theology book and I really think that this time I might actually finish what I start...  But my online sharing has been limited to twitter tweets and facebook flippancies for years now and I wondered if  perhaps it was time to begin again.  And then I've been hanging around this excellent blog..and commenting..and then it was suggested that I really ought to be blogging myself....  So I finally selected a title and sat down yesterday to write my first post.

And I tried again.

And again.

And this morning I thought and thought and selected TWO ideas for my first two posts.

And I tried again....

Somehow that fine art of writing coherent and insightful posts that don't exceed the attention span of the average online reader has escaped me!  (well...let's be honest, I never was that good at writing short posts) 

But after hours of writing and editing and agonizing and self-questioning (do I still GOT it??) I had to laugh.  Look at my title.  Look at it right now.  "Out of SUPERBIA"    Superbia, as you may know, is the neighborhood of PRIDE.  I have been trying and trying to move OUT of that neighborhood.  I have been begging God to humble me. I've been playing spiritual whack-a-mole with my mind & soul, trying to kill this deadly beast whenever it raises its shape-shifting head.  And I. Am. Losing.

Pride is what has kept me agonizing over my first blogpost for days. Pride says "It must be awesome." Pride demands "You must garner comments and praise and trackbacks or you have failed"  Pride whispers "If you don't hit out of the park with your wisdom, wit, and lyrical language every time then you can't call yourself a writer".    I am so sick of pride.  I want out of superbia.  I want to be set free.  And only Jesus Christ can do it.  No brilliant blog post, no self-flagellation, no well-breathed prayer or impassioned Scripture memorization can do it.  Only Christ.  Until He kills it for me, I can only keep whacking.  And in this case, that means posting something I consider less than my best.  It's not brilliant. It's not beautiful.   It's not anywhere near the most insightful thing I've ever written.  But at least I'm struggling to put my pride on the chopping block by hitting "Publish Post" 

"Let us, at the very commencement of our meditations, admit that there is nothing so natural to man, nothing so insidious and hidden from our sight, nothing so difficult or dangerous, as pride." ~Andrew Murray