What I Wish I Had Known

What I Wish I Had Known

Written by Kaylynn Himelick

As I sat down to write what I hoped would be an exquisite piece of encouragement and wisdom, I had high hopes. Then reality hit and along with it a good solid dose of writer’s block. A wall (or perhaps just a high fence) was quickly established between my small brain cells and every lesson, memory, quote, statistic and brief sermon illustration I had heard in the last 5 years. (Hyperbole? Yes. But frustrating all the same!)

I started with “Once upon a time…” Nothing. “The other day I was reading…” Everything that I have read in the last 3 years left my head. “This last year I learned…” I know God has taught me something…I was at a loss.

Just at the moment of despair, a little voice whispered an often used and underrated question.  “What do you wish you had known?” This question came in a flash of either intense inspiration or desperation. I’ll let you be the judge. The answer, while not super original, is a Biblical truth that Jesus has been gently teaching me for the past 5 years.

Paul writes in his letter to the Ephesians, “Therefore I, the prisoner of the Lord, implore you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, showing tolerance for one another in love, being diligent to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. (4:1-3)

This passage is a mouthful but having said that the way that this verse has been most effectively brought home to my little brain is in a single phrase…(prepare your minds and hearts)

“Don’t take yourself so seriously!”

While this is not necessarily a comforting phrase it brings to my attention the reality that much of the Christian walk begins with Humility.

Now, pause, as we pull forth the giant dictionary of Christianese: Humility is NOT a smallness, or meanness of existence. It is not characterized by a person that walks around letting everyone know that they are the lowest of all humanity. Pride and humility are all about focus.

C. S. Lewis gives a beautiful description of this contrast in "Mere Christianity." He makes the case that a truly humble person will be recognized by the fact that they enjoy living life and seem to really care about what other people have to say. Humility is about having an outward focus. The Christian demonstrates humility because a clear understanding of the God we serve forces us to a proper realization of our position in relation to Him. God loved us, NOT because we were lovable but because God is love. Our response must be adoration, not self-contempt.

In 2015 my family began attending a small Christian day school. I grew by leaps and bounds during my time there but by the time I reached 15, I knew what peer pressure meant. When my family lived, and ministered in inner-city Indianapolis, and later living and working on a farm I had dealt with pressure but never this quiet pressure to say the right things, wear the right things, watch the right things, listen to the right things. (*right being whatever the other kids did)

It was amongst this formative year that God really began fleshing out what it meant to live in humility. As He brought me to His Word day after day, He taught me what He called “Good”. He said that I am to live carefully before Him in love. This often means that I don’t say, wear, watch, or listen to the “right” things because I am more focused on what Christ has to say.

And the Wonder is that this is God’s work! My Dad says when you come to a “therefore” in scripture you must always look to see what the therefore is there for, and if we back u 2 verses this bleak picture of striving, becomes a beautiful picture of grace.

Ephesians 3:20-21 “Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us, to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever.”

My focus does not have to be in myself. God in his love and mercy gives me the grace to love abundantly with humility with gentleness, patience, tolerance, and in the end, unity. It is his work in Me! I just have to keep my eyes wholly focused on Him and what He asks of my life! Simple? Yes, but if we can get ahold on it, it will change our lives!