A New Level of Humility

"How long will you refuse to humble yourself before me?" - God

"Humility is impossible for the insecure." - Yours Truly

"Humility is impossible for weak." - Yours Truly

"Humility is impossible for those who have something to prove." - Yours Truly

"Humility is impossible for for the fear-full." - Yours Truly

"Humility is impossible for the bitter." - Yours Truly

"Humility is impossible for he who must be acknowledged as right." - Your Truly

 

"I tell you the truth, unless you change and become [humble] like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven." - Jesus Christ

 

Coming from a religious culture that tied my salvation primarily to 1) believing accurate truth, 2) behaving accurately moral, and 3) and doing the accurate things during "church" has embedded in me the illusion of needing to be right.

 

Christ's demand for humility has really confronted this illusion. And the more I focus on the practice of Christ's humility, the more peaceful and untouchable it seems my spirit becomes. Interesting thing is, the more peaceful and untouchable my spirit becomes, the deeper I'm allowed to see into my inner being...at which point, I get to see just how deep my insecurities, fears, and weaknesses are embedded.

 

This is no longer bad news to me, it is merely an objective truth about being human. The commonly perceived "curse" of having the light shone upon our deeper weaknesses and fears is in reality the "blessing" of having those fears and weaknesses penetrated and healed. But, oh, how we avoid the light. And, oh, how we excuse ourselves from allowing this Light of Life from entering in. Either with "productive business" or "slavery to others" and sometimes even with very dutiful and religious works.

 

What do I gain from being right? From winning an argument? From shielding my insecurities? What, truly, have I gained when I've proved someone else the fool, and vindicated myself? What gift is it when the "fellowship of the moment" hears me and agrees? Or hears someone else and disagrees because of me?

 

What do I gain when I show myself to be right against my wife about some nuanced detail concerning yesterdays history that was the source of a heated debate this morning? What do I lose when I was mistaken?

 

Humility steals whatever gain there is to be had from such things, which turns out to always be very little and very worthless anyway. And it replaces it with unspeakable and bottomless blessing and glory. Biblically stated, humility delivers the Kingdom of Heaven and it's transcendent, untouchable, and peaceful ways.

 

The old song still rings in ears, "Lord, its hard to be humble, when you're perfect in every way." 

 

That kind of perfection is way overrated. We should stop fighting against humility in order to protect the illusion of it, and instead embrace humility in order to lean ever-more into the real kind...Christ-likeness.