Essential to one's salvation is humilty. We cannot come to the point of repentence and faith that is necessary to salvation without first being broken and humbled before God.
Probably the biggest challange once we are saved and we begin going through the process of sancitification is to remain humble. It is very easy as we begin to learn and be sanctified to quickly revert to our previous prideful state, albeit for different reasons. I remember after my own salvation suddenly feeling that I knew better than most Christians who had been saved far longer than I had been.
One thing I have probably prayed for more than any other over the last nine years (I was saved in May of 1999), is wisdom. In a sort of contradictory manner, I have been quick to assume that I knew better than others who had come before me, but at the same time understood that in the grand scheme of things I know nothing, and need wisdom.
In His time, God has answered my prayers and given my wisdom, little by little, as He knew I could handle it. Inherent in wisdom is humilty, making a prayer for wisdom, in some ways, a two-for-one deal.
He has been answering the prayer for wisdom again lately. I say “again” because it comes and goes. I get some wisdom, go a time without getting any more, and then get some more at a later time. His timing is always right. If I got it all at once, I think I would likely go insane, as there is so much that the Lord reveals to me providentially that is very hard to swallow. For example, we as Christian are well aware that we are in the midst of a spiritual war that has raged since the Creation. The tactics that the enemy has used in recent times can be very difficult to swallow once they come to light, especially those that have been implemented subtly and patiently over a long period of time. In fact, it always brings renewed appreciation to the scripture passages where Jesus says “beware, lest you be deceived” when I start understanding another tactic that has seemingly gone unnoticed.
This post probably seems a little scatter-brained. I am being intentionally vague here. If I got into specifics, I could easily be passed off as some kind of conspiracy-nut (which, to some extent, I freely admit to being). Some things just don't make sense in regards to conspiracy theory, however, unless you look at them through a Christian world-view and realise that there is one “Grand Conspirator” who has the luxery of time on his side, he's not limited to the life span of a single generation.
In the end, I wish to exhort anyone reading this to remember the humilty that you had to come to at salvation (assuming you are saved – if not, you might want to take the good person test linked to at the top of this site). Just because you are well into the sanctification process is no reason to lose sight of the need for humilty.
And remember: God is in control!
