Yes. Quoting Pastor Rick because what he says is so insightful. When you seriously think about it, how one acts with the family is the telling and most revealing thing about a person.
Everyone has the facade in front of their friends, no one wants to be the 'bad guy', the one who tells you faults and sin that you need to be dealing with, but within the context of the family... that is where it's really at.
Being at home again makes me appreciative. The situations where I am not in control. It is so character revealing and sometimes the person I am at home, scares me. It shows me how much pride I still have. Even if I'm "humble" at school, at home the humility, the practice of submission, the practice of grace and love; it all unravels. Family is where I have the most security in being who I truly am, the sinful nature comes sneaking out because I am not actively fighting. Because at home, it's comfortable. this is where the application, this is the time in which my theology should shine through my actions, in what I wear, in how I act.
When pride comes, then comes disgrace, but with humility comes wisdom.
proverbs 11:2
Pride only breeds quarrels, but wisdom is found in those who take advice. prov 13:10
Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall. prov 16:18
The end of a matter is better than its beginning, and patience is better than pride. Eccl 7:8
In his pride the wicked does not seek him; in all his thoughts there is no room for God. psalm 10:4
How aptly this prayer:
Heart Corruptions
O God, may Thy Spirit speak in me that I may speak to thee. I have no merit, let the merit of Jesus stand for me. I am undeserving, but I look to Thy tender mercy. I am full of infirmities, wants, sin; Thou art full of grace.
I confess my sin, my frequent sin, my wilful sin; all my powers of body and soul are defiled: a fountain of pollution is deep within my nature. There are chambers of foul images within my being; I have gone from one odious room to another, walked in a no-man's-land of dangerous imaginations, pried into the secrets of my fallen nature.
I am utterly ashamed that I am what I am in myself; I have no green shoot in me nor fruit, but thorns and thistles; I am a fading leaf that the wind drives away; I live bare and barren as a winter tree, unprofitable, fit to be hewn down and burnt. Lord, dost Thou have mercy on me?
Thou hast struck a heavy blow at my pride, at the false god of self, and I lie in pieces before Thee. But Thou hast given me another master and lord, Thy Son, Jesus, and now my heart is turned towards holiness, my life speeds as an arrow from a bow towards complete obedience to Thee. Help me in all my doings to put down sin and to humble pride. Save me from the love of the world and the pride of life, from everything that is natural to fallen man, and let Christ's nature be seen in me day by day. Grant me grace to bear Thy will without repining, and delight to be not only chiselled, squared, or fashioned, but separated from the old rock where I have been embedded so long, and lifted from the quarry to the upper air, where I may be built in Christ for ever.
The Valley of Vision: A Collection of Puritan Prayers & Devotions, edited by Arthur Bennett
