Acts 20:19
“Serving the Lord with all humility of mind, and with many tears, and temptations, which befell me by the lying in wait of the Jews.” KJV
The Scripture hit me like a ton of bricks in the face. I have told you, all of my friends, that I would be honest with you and I would tell you exactly what God is doing behind the scenes. So I want to be honest with you in this blog. This Friday, which is the day that this blog is to be emailed out, I woke up early and the Lord told me I was narcissistic.
For some of you this might’ve been discouraging, and for others even hurtful, but for the type of person with my ego it was actually refreshing. As most of you know, my ego is extremely strong. But that’s one reason I’ve been able to stay on the vision of the movie industry for so long and not waver concerning the promise God gave me. But there’s another side to this coin. A strong ego can also make you narcissistic.
Over the last week God has been crushing like a flower, and the sweet smell of humility has been rising up my spirit. But to be honest, I had no clue it was happening to me personally. The only way I could see it or intellectually recognize it was by what other people said about me, and my first reaction was, “What are they talking about?” That’s because humility was not something I was used to having. So this morning, when the Lord told me I was narcissistic, the revelation really slammed me in the face!
Yet my response was to start laughing, crying, and rejoicing, because I finally saw what my problem was. When I was born my mother, Marilyn Gazowsky, named me “Richard.” I once looked up that name in the dictionary and found out it means: “to rule hard; kingship; lionhearted” ~ examples of what I’d been like because I naturally rule hard, want to control things, and to lead people like I think a king would. But obviously these personality traits are narcissistic in nature. This was the thing that God has been trying to crush out of me, and it is still not all gone. But praise God I now can recognize it ~ which means I can help the rest of it leave.
Now listen. To those who are reading this blog I realize I am being extremely vulnerable in a public forum like this, and some people might even want to take advantage of me. But don’t worry about Richard. I am willing to pay the price to please Jesus, to be His servant, and to have His presence upon me. Oh how I love His presence!
History tells us of so many kings who faced the decision of choosing humility over self-ego and inflated praise. Maybe for all of us to learn humility is the way to go. Then when you are home you can dance like a child and enjoy every moment of your life. It will mean a life not filled with shadows but with a sweet-smelling aroma ~ like the sandalwood scent of one of the Tom Ford Essence perfumes. It is the crushing of the ego…
A Place To Meet Jesus 