Chapter Five "Ms. Spirituality"

This week in our book study of Behind Those Eyes by Lisa Whittle from Leila's blog we meet Ms. Spirituality. One of the main things that jumped out at me in this chapter is the subject of motives. To quote Lisa "All of our good deeds and actions depend completely on the motives of our hearts. If we strive to be spiritual just for the sake of striving, then we are wading in dangerous waters."
For awhile now, God has been speaking in various ways to me about my motives. And when I really stop and think about why I do certain things, I am chagrined at myself if I am truly honest what my hidden agenda is. It oftentimes is pretty disgusting. I think this is where Ms. Spirituality, high up on her lofty pedestal of her own making, peers down and judges others for not thinking like her or doing what she does on the outward. Lift my hands to worship at church....sure, no problem for me. But I admit (and I cringe to say this) that I have asked someone about someone else as far as their opinion of how spiritual a certain person was because they didn't raise their hands during worship at church. Ouch! Who made me God, and who made me judge over how others worship the Lord. And how many times have I sat in a church service with my hands in my lap for whatever mood I might have been in at the time. And, I remember saying to a friend who had just become a Christian but who was too nervous to go to see "The Passion of The Christ" when it came out at the theater (I had tickets and wanted her to go with me) "well, don't let the devil have his way and control you" to her because she had heard it was gory in parts and just didn't want to see it. If that wasn't a Christianese, self-righteous comment, I don't know what was. What was my motive in that? To make my friend feel guilty for not going to the movie and to show how mature and spiritual I was for going? Forget about the fact I'd been a Christian for years and she was brand new. Thankfully, we are still friends. But I am sure that I have intimidated people by trying to be super spiritual at times. But despite me trying to play the spiritual superiority game at times, I know that if someone who is a Christian is real about their struggles and pain and tells about the reality of their feelings of things they are going through, I am so drawn to that rather than to someone who gives the impression they have it all together spiritually. There was a woman in our women's ministry leadership team last year for a monthly meeting we did who was someone I put on a pedestal as being a very spiritual and perfect Christian wife and mom. But one time at a meeting, she shared about some problems her family was going through with one of her teenagers and she said "I'm just pissed off about the whole thing!!" WHAT?!! I sat with my mouth open that she said that so honestly, but her realness drew us all in and everyone there just let down their hair and talked and shared and tried to help her...where before we might have acted like we had it all together and she didn't.
I hope I am not rambling too much with this. The older I get, the more flat-out real I want to be and less of a game-player as far as showing one side being Ms. Spiritual and having a lot of junk inside that is covered up. Real is refreshing, and real is a big relief!