The Unknown Monster

"To forgive is to set a prisoner free and realize that the prisoner was you"

-Lewis B. Smedes

The above quote has been a theme quote for my life. I've realized that when I am unwilling to forgive, I unknowingly make myself a prisoner. This happens more often then I care to admit. It is usually a small seed of hurt that gets planted into my heart and blooms into a monster of bitterness and resentment. I rarely process or recognize the hurt, which results in me allowing the unforgiving monster to grow. But when I intentionally set aside time to ask the Holy Spirit if I am withholding forgiveness from someone, He always shows me someone I never expected. It's amazing to me how I don't recognize that the smallest things affect me.


As I took time to listen to the Holy Spirit's leading, He clearly reminded me of a situation with a friend where I was withholding forgiveness. The only problem was that the situation happened almost TWO YEARS AGO. Now, asking for forgiveness is one thing. I can handle that. But admitting that I had unknowingly been resenting someone for something they did two years ago....now my pride can't deal with that.


Eventually I realized that setting aside my pride was the cost I had to pay to kill this bitter, resenting monster inside of me. After a bit of a wrestling match, I realized it was a price that I was willing to pay in order to be transformed into the likeness of Christ. So I had a conversation with this person and acknowledged the hurt, said I was sorry, and asked for forgiveness. 

And I felt exactly the same. 

I felt a bit of a sense of relief that there was no longer a seed of bitterness, but overall I didn't feel any major change. There were no tears. There was no yelling. There was no booming voice of the Lord interfering. But it happened. And although I didn't feel any major difference, I believe that God knew I was a prisoner to this unforgiving monster and that He had a better plan for me. Despite the fact that it felt like I became vulnerable for no reason, I trust that the result was God transforming me. This process began as a "forgiveness project", but the moral of the story was obedience and trust. 

Obedience in responding to the Holy Spirit and trust that He will follow through with the heart change.

The Process of Emptying

“Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.”

Philippians 2:5-7 

As we have been discussing Philippians 2:5-7 in class, I have been staring at the word “emptied” hoping that I will randomly have some deeper understanding of what it really means. Part of me just wanted to go and mindlessly do a service act for someone so I could just check off this project from my to-do list. But, my prayer throughout this school has been to actually let my heart engage, not just go through the motions. After some praying and thinking, I realized that I see this act of “emptying” as a side effect of humility. This verse speaks of Jesus' posture of humility. He is not concerned about his divine status, authority, notability, etc., instead He has the humility to set it all aside and become a servant. For me, applying this act of "emptying" meant I would be practicing humility. In order to practice humility, I must face my nemesis....pride. 

pride (/prīd/): Undue confidence in and attention to one's own skills, accomplishments, state, possessions, or position. Pride may appear in many forms, such as spiritual pride. 

Even just looking at the word makes me cringe. Pride is a common enemy for me. Over the years, as I have attempted to conquer my pride, my pride has gotten better at disguising itself. A few years ago, I felt like I always had to be the girl that “has it all together”. Eventually, God scraped away that pride, but I realized that a different spiritual pride replaced it. I discovered I was okay with being vulnerable with people and “not having it all together” in my faith...

...as long as people understood that I did not need help from anyone other than God.

 I thrived off of being the girl that had mess in her life, but leaned so hard into God that she didn't need other people to help. All this to say, I felt like my “emptying” assignment was to be humbled by asking someone for help and encouragement. If I am being honest, I was pretty upset when God spoke this. Asking for help and encouragement sounded like one of the most painful processes to me. And on top of that, the person God put on my heart to share with was a friend that makes me feel so incredibly uncomfortable (in a good way). Our friendship is in the phase where we are far beyond surface conversation, but not quite to the point where I have let all my walls down. And that feels like a very vulnerable state to me. As I fumbled over my words attempting to ask her for help, I could feel my pride screaming inside of me, “SHUT UP!”. I honestly think there was one point where I almost threw up because I so desperately did not want to be exposed. Exposed as someone who is indeed human. Exposed as someone who does in fact need people in her life. Exposed as someone whose pride was leaking out of them. 

And exposed was exactly how I felt. 

The few seconds of silence between the two of us felt like eternity. In that moment I not only felt exposed, but I felt like I was being emptied. As she responded and spoke life and encouragement into me, I felt like she stabbed me with a straw and I could watch my pride leak out with every word she said. The rest of our interaction was wonderful and probably permanently life changing, but it’s irrelevant to this post. The act of exposing myself, being humbled, emptied and encouraged was all what God had asked of me. 

The fact that I engaged in this project doesn’t mean I will forever be emptied and humbled. I am far from it. Even now, I feel like I am having a vulnerability hangover thinking back to what I shared with her (and the fact that at least 10 other people are required to read this post). Even now, I want to collect my bricks of pride to put up walls between humanity and myself. Even now, I still wonder if I even understood this Kenosis Project at all. Yet, the reality of my heart is that I desire to be exposed, humbled and emptied all for the purpose of being transformed into the likeness of Christ. 

And for that, it's worth it.