I'M TIRED OF BEING PICKED ON

In the pine trees that surround the ball field behind the church is a hawk's next. I like watching the raptors and hope they aren't too annoyed that I occasionally stare up at them from the base of the tree they call home.

But then insert the crows. The poor hawk barely gets off and into flight before 2 or 3 of these large lustrous black birds begin to attack and pick on it. Really, it seems to always be the case. I can't imagine what the bird thinks, but I am even tired of those crows.

I'm tired of picking, period. The crows on the hawk. The devil on me. I'm tired of picking.

You should meet some of the people that live and work close to me... they are like the crows, and just as good at picking.

They are bad news. I am the poor hawk going about my own business, when "ca ca" (that's suppose to be a crow sound).

Well this was my thesis until this week: Me the hawk, them the crows.

Insert God. He's taken me to see that I might be the hawk... but I'm also the crow. That Satan and sin is not all about using the world to get at me but my own self(ishness). That it is my own pride that causes me to be picked on. It is impossible to be humiliated when I have humility, or to be disgraced when I am living a life of grace.

C.S. Lewis says this is where it all begins-"Pride leads to every other vice: it is the complete anti-God state of mind."

Books tell them to call selfishness by other names. Fear, weakness, frustration, and hurt all can all point to someone else being the crow. Without any interest in excusing them, we must realize, they aren't the one's picking.

I am tired of being picked on by my own sin. So, I am headed back to spending a "thoughtful hour on the life of Christ" each morning-to learn from that life of humility and grace.