ego

this week in the small group i lead, we were able to touch on humility and how to stay humble. when i posed the question, how do you stay humble? i got the automatic church responses: pray, read your bible, go to church. all are right, and great answers, but i was trying to put it on a more practical level. the only advice that i could come up with, or i should say God let me think up, was to check your motives. if you get a chance to exhibit one of your gifts or talents, slow down and check your motives before you do it. say you play in a worship band and you get a chance to play on a big stage. check your motives. think about why you want to do it. if you want to do it for your own pride, just to get up and show off just to show everyone how awesome you are, God isn't probably going to bless that. but if you approach it humbly, slow down, and focus on doing it for God, focus on playing for Him as worship and an expression of using your talents for His will, then He will definitely bless that. its real easy to do things for our own greedy egos and we just need to slow down and look at the big picture. do it all for Him. i personally know that is far easier said than done, but i truly believe if we do give it all to Him, we'll be better for it. i don't know, thats just my two cents.