Humility and Egypt.

 

    One of the best things I have ever prayed for was humility. There is a difference between asking God for humility and for God to make us humble and I prefer the first option. In this blog post I will be sharing some personal details that I have never really talked about before with anyone. I feel strongly that a short treatise on humility is important before I get to talking about Egypt and the Bible. I am perhaps a little overly conscious of all the mistakes I remember and certainly I have regrets. There are incidents and actions on my part that I would be most glad to be rid of. I am not suffering drastically over them, but they remain a painful internal lesson of when I have not valued humility and going to the Lord first as I should have.  I have a bit of a warm spot inside for the word humility and I will explain why. On the flip side, I have had so many experiences and internal struggles with pride that I have a sort of, not exactly a fear of pride, but that is the word I will use because it comes the closest to how I feel about this word pride.  

    I have nothing to be proud of and I do not mean this in a disparaging way or that there has not been any accomplishment. Sometimes it is necessary to elaborate on certain words because the accepted understanding we have of that word does not convey what we really mean or intend to say. I have nothing to be proud of, and that word "proud" is a word to be examined. Do I have a sense of accomplishment? Yes. I was never a scholar and having a sense of some academic limitations (which is not the same as cognitive limitation) I often questioned my ability to get through high school. I took a physiological examination in college once, and the gist of the results was that the Doctor said I had very good wiring. I sometimes have the problem of understanding a concept well but being unable to articulate a clear summary of it. This is much less pronounced in writing than in speaking. In high school, I could have made a greater effort to be industrious. That much is true. And it is also true that I struggled academically despite the effort I put into it. And, I can say that the older I have become, the greater my ability to marshal my faculties for the completion of a goal be it academic or otherwise. In high school I prayed that God would help me graduate and He did. Then came college. Long story short, an A.A and a B.A were the result and I often prayed that God would help me to graduate, which He did. I am not really tempted as much to be proud of my academic accomplishments though I have a great sense of accomplishment and relief that it is behind me. And here I am, the kid who prayed for God to help him complete high school, praying that He will help me complete an MA. At times I worry about what good it could do, and at other time feel that this MA is a waste of time and funds, and at other times feel that it is indispensable for the goals and aspirations I have. And if I should happen to succeed in those lofty goals, I will be tempted by the curse of pride. Here I come back to this word "pride". I can honestly say that I have a sort of, well, extreme sense of caution, almost fear in regards to pride. But then, there is the Creator. What have I to be proud of next to Him? Jesus, who though He was above all chose the path of humility! Doesn't that go against a natural order of some kind!? This last sentence is the useless, irrelevant rational of pride talking. And as the old saying goes, you are never more like the devil than when you are proud. In the happiest moments of my life pride has never been present or a contributing factor. I am more aware than anyone of my shortcomings and challenges. I can say, by the grace of God that I have accomplished more than I thought possible in my formative years, and yet of course loftier goals are in the future. I often consider that I need His help more than ever. My defense against pride, when by the grace of God there is success, is to plead for humility and to remember that Jesus, though He had every right to be uplifted, chose the path of humility. What an example! When I meet authors who have written a lot of successful books, or people who have attained a Ph.D and have been very successful, I offer very sincere modest congratulations because I know from experience that most of them are also conscious of their weaknesses as well. And some of them are definitely on guard against pride. Some of these people who are my friends are hesitant to stay in the spotlight, and though they could be referred to as Dr so and so, they have asked that they be referred to as they were before they got their Ph.D. And because of this, there are some friends I have who are Ph.D's and they did not add it to their names. There are some friends I have and I did not know they were Ph.D's until I realized that their jobs required them to have one. There is a tremendous, overlooked beauty to humility. And should I achieve all of the goals I set out to achieve, the greatest achievement will be the serene humility that is still present when certain goals have been stated and accomplished. I say certain goals because of course there are goals that transcend academics, traveling and writing books and this would involve the Kingdom of God and the Gospel. 

    As to humility, is is a beautiful thing. Humility is seeing that yes, there has been a great accomplishment, but that we still need God's grace despite whatever mountains He has helped us to overcome. That we still need Him as desperately as before we ventured on the journey of goals and aspirations. There is one book in the Bible that is not finished, and that would be the book of Acts. In a sense, our greatest accomplishment will not be fully realized or finished until the book of Acts is finished. Is there a greater accomplishment than, by the grace of God, leading souls to eternal life? Another fear of mine is that the lofty goals I have in mind will do little to bring many to the Lord. And yet, to almost all appearances, the Lord seems to have put me on the path I am on now and to my mind, has confirmed that that I am to follow it. But what about leading many souls to the Lord? I had a teacher once who said something that I thought was profound, and at the time I knew nothing about writing and I can't say that I truly had any talent or skill at it. My teacher who had written successful books said that in his writing, he could reach many more people by writing than by preaching. And that always stuck, though at this point I can't say I am certain that I have reached anyone by writing and probably not by preaching either. And yet, that is my chief goal. And another goal is to habitually ask and thank the Lord for the gift of humility. I am contented and happy in humility. In humility, I can see clearly, but when I have been proud in the past, my pride often blinded me to the reality of what things are or were. Instead of seeing things as they were, things were obscured by the inclination and error of factoring myself into whatever equation it was when more often than not, it did not involve me. When I realized this error I had sometimes indulged, I began to understand that humility is crucial to being able to perceive many situations more clearly so that there are no distortions to complicate reality with. And so, humility is what I will be asking for a lot, but not just humility, but a new heart, a heart that can no longer comprehend pride. A heart is repulsed and sickened by it. Perhaps, or hopefully, I guess since I am deeply distrustful in regards to pride, which I was not in the past, it is a good sign. I am not perfect. The Lord has a lot of work to do on me, but He is able and I will be persevering. I need humility, and for what I plan to do, I will need to ask for it often. And I am thankful to have a defense against this rational fear, or extreme caution I have regarding pride. 
Having said all this, I will be traveling the UK and Egypt in a few weeks because I have a theory or theories which I am hoping to incorporate in the final project for my MA. Again, I sometimes have strong doubts about whether getting an MA is the right path. But when I have succeeded in my classes, it has always been because I had an idea, probably from the Lord, for writing a paper for an assignment that seemed unassailable. And yet, every time, when I succeeded, religion or a religious topic has always been the epiphany that has allowed me to not only complete the writing assignment, but to write it with gusto and a fulfilling sense that I was bringing very relevant religious considerations to bear in respect to the assignment topic. When I wrote on religious topics that had not been covered much and that were related to or were my chosen topics for the assignments, the creative juices flowed and thus far I have been in the A range for the major papers I have written. And for the final project, religion again is the crux of the matter. 

I would like to write two books. One of them is perhaps half way done and I intend to ask advice from others who have walked this road before me. I know this is a need, not a want.  One of the books in question led to my deciding to get an MA and the initial idea for it came from my twin brother Brian. The book is called Timeless. Imagine that you could spend a day in Heaven. Who would you talk to? Who would you see? What would you do? What kind of meals would you have? What sort of conversations would you have? What would you spend a lot of your time doing? The book, Timeless, attempts to answer these questions. The Bible informs us that when we are in Heaven that God, in an ultimate act of transparency, will have us access the record books of Heaven. Do you like watching movies? Well, whether you do or not, Timeless creates a scenario of a young girl visiting heaven for a day and a lot of what she does involves looking at the records of the past in what, in the book, is called a hyrdo-holographic visual experience. And one of the persons whose life she looks at is Moses. So, Egypt came into the story, and not knowing much about Egypt but being fascinated by it, the next step an an attempt to inform mysel. Some theories began to take shape, and motivated by the theories I had and wanted to explore, I conducted extensive research and this led to my deciding to get an MA. And not long afterwards, I decided to make my final project about the interconnecting parallelism between certain and very specific events in Egyptian history and corresponding events in the Biblical record. In so many cases, ancient Egyptian History and the Bible both describe the same event, but of course the names are different. My theories do not involve the traditional rehashing of what is often given as the history of the Bible with regards to Egypt. For example, Hollywood and some in the academic community say that Ramses was the Pharaoh of the exodus, and this is if they even take the Biblical record seriously as I do. My research points to another individual entirely. The other book will be an academic account of my research in the British museum and Egypt as well as my research based conclusions. More directly, it will also be the capstone or final project for my MA if my University approves it.

So, with this in mind, a friend suggested that I make a documentary of everything I will be researching in the British museum as well as Egypt and that is what I intended to do. As soon as I consulted people who know how to make documentarys I realized that there was a problem. I do not have the resources and know how for this, but a video journel is something that is less complicated and something I can do and I will be uploading video logs or video journals in sections to FB and later I will make it one video. I intend to seek the counsel of a good friend who is well informed in this area. I am including a link below of many items I intend to cover in this documentary below. And if I am successful in this, my greatest accomplishment will be that I will still treasure humility. When I succeed at this, there will still be a much more important goal and aspiration and that would be the salvation of souls. Because really, what is more valuable? And if I put myself into the shoes of someone on judgment day, someone who will be outside the gates of the holy city, the New Jerusalem, isn't it worth all the treasure in the world if that fate could be averted? And who knows, I may not be able to reach some people, but isn't it better to try and by God's grace succeed at? My goal in going to Egypt will not place this more important goal on a hiatus. And I pray that God will use what I write to result in many souls won for the kingdom. I had great doubts about getting an MA and writing a book on the topic of connections between Egyptian history and the Bible, but God gave me a divine appointment that convinced me that He wanted me to go on this specific journey and I will share it in the next blog I write. 

 

https://hubbleocean.blogspot.com/2021/12/a-shared-symmetry-between-ancient.html