On Pollen and Humility. Or, How I Learned the Truth of 1 Peter 5:3-8 the Hard Way

All of you clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, because,

God resists the proud
but gives grace to the humble.

Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God, so that he may exalt you at the proper time, casting all your cares on him, because he cares about you.

1 Peter 5:3-8 CSB

It has been almost twenty-five years since I lived in seminary housing at Southeastern (SEBTS) in Wake Forest, North Carolina. I was not the student in those days, but I was learning a lot. It must have been this time of the year because I remember walking to the playground with my blonde pig-tailed two-year-old and being baffled that the metal slide was covered in yellow dust. “Is there a sulfur plant near here?” Ahhhh… the introduction of pollen to a native Texan who grew up wondering what all those allergy med commercials on TV were for. “Northerners who aren’t as tough as we are, I suppose.” Ahem. The ignorance of youth.

I wish my ignorance and arrogance were limited to my lack of understanding of spring allergens. (And sulfur plants undoubtedly.) But, of course, they weren’t. I was in the midst of a long season of confusing suffering. One source of my confusion was centered in my definition of abuse. I’ve shared some of those thoughts here. But a foundational belief that made my suffering more acute was a misunderstanding of the way God works in the world. I had thought that if I was a “good girl,” things would go well for me. I thought that’s how God treated people. I was not unexposed to suffering as a child, but it was really easy for me to interpret people’s suffering through the lens of what I perceived as their failure. I aimed to do better and assumed I would receive better. I was both ignorant and arrogant.

In, Suffering and Heart of God: How Trauma Destroys and How God Restores, Diane Langberg describes it this way:

Our egocentricity says to us, “You have experienced these things because you have “_____,”—not been responsible, not loved your spouse well, not made moral choices, etc. Implicit is the idea that if they did what we did, made similar choices to ours, or behaved well, then injustice would not be present in their lives. If someone is downtrodden or oppressed, it is probably their fault.” (p. 17)

But there I was, experiencing “these things” even though I’d checked the right boxes.

Something to note in this passage that I am certain I could not see clearly at the time is that while God humbles his children, He does not humiliate them. His response to our humility is lifting us up, showing us favor, and caring for us. This informs how we can care for friends, family members, and counselees who are brought low by their suffering: seek to understand their situation from a place of humility, gently encourage them to seek God’s perspective of their situation, remind them that God cares for them, and point them towards the hope that as they trust and obey, God has promised to lift them up, “at the proper time.”

As a young believer, I was quick to assign blame when I encountered certain types of suffering. I did that with myself, and I did it with others. Sorrow did not soften my stance on sin, but it did humble me and help me be slower to make assumptions until I know someone’s story more deeply and understand the context of their lives well enough to discern what biblical commands speak into their situation. It is one of the many places we can see God’s wisdom given to us in his instruction, “Clothe yourselves with humility toward one another.” For my part, the pollen on my windshield in spring always reminds me to dress myself with that humility.

Between a Rock and a Hard Place

“You hem me in, behind and before,
    and lay your hand upon me.”

Psalm 139:5

I had, no doubt, spent the last hour describing the troubles that were pressing in on me in the months subsequent to a season of excruciating rescue. My counselor was apt to remind me that while I might not have been in Egypt anymore, I had most definitely not arrived to the Promised Land. Whether or not I was seeing the challenges clearly, I am not certain, but from the vantage point of nearly a decade later, I doubt I was. What I do know, without any uncertainty, is that my counselor responded with kindness and compassion. He picked up his duct-taped Bible and took his time as he thumbed its pages. He read me David’s words from Psalm 139, “You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me.” He continued, “I hear you saying that He has hemmed you in. But remember, He has chosen those limitations. And it is THERE that His hand is on you.”

I have come back to those words over and over. I have spoken them to myself; I have spoken them to my children; I have spoken them to counselees. And they are true.

One strategy I find helpful is to think about those limitations, to imagine that wall pressing in on the left and the right, and then to do three things.

1. Identify the circumstances that make you feel trapped. What things make you feel like you can’t trust and obey? What circumstances feel immovable? What things do you see are true in Scripture but seem impossible to apply in your life?

2. Ask God to show you where your back is up against the door. Determine if there are things you must give up in order to obey. Find the areas where you are tempted to take more responsibility than God has given you. Ask him to “turn you around” from the circumstances you cannot control, and to turn you toward the door of trust and obedience, even if it is costly to walk through it.

3. Acknowledge, sometimes “rock and hard place” situations are untenable. I spend a significant amount of time with counselees sorting through situations like these. There are times that, albeit imperfectly, you are trusting, are obeying, and you are still very much hemmed in. In these situations, continue waiting on the Lord and continue asking God to deliver you.

And remember, His hand is on you.

©Jacqueline Larraga, 2024