Humility

What is Humility?

This is a long post... apologies!

I was given three books to read by my supervisor and told to write an essay on humility.

The books he gave me were Mark's Gospel (by Mark), the Freedom of Self-Forgetfulness (by Timothy Keller) and Humility: True Greatness (by C.J.Mahaney), and I would definitely recommend reading them yourself.

The whole task was really enlightening, and really challenging. It was really striking just how much God hates pride, which I hadn't grasped the extent of before (check out verses like Proverbs 16:5, "The Lord detests all the proud of heart. Be sure of this: They will not go unpunished." and Psalm 138:6, "Though the LORD is on high, he looks upon the lowly, but the proud he knows from afar."). The questions I was then asking myself were, "Why? Why is pride SO bad? Surely stealing or something like that is worse? Something that is actually physical and not just the way you think?".

The answer became clearest to me in looking at the Fall in Genesis. For those who don't know how it goes, at the start of the Bible it tells us that God made the universe and everything in it, including people. He had an amazing relationship with us, but we severed it by sinning, and that's the reason the world is so seriously flippin' messed up... I'm paraphrasing. I believe it's symbolic, others take it literally, but the message is still the same. The reason God may seem so distant and unrevealed, the reason the world is so broken, is because of sin.

But what was the first sin? What was it that started it all off? It was pride. Check out Genesis 3:5-6, ""[the Devil speaking] For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." When the woman saw the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it." In this the first people (symbolic or not) sinned by having the pride to try and be like God. They wanted to take God's position.

This is the sin that separates humanity from God (Genesis 3:23, "So the LORD banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken."), but pride not only separates us from God, it also prevents us from desiring to go back to Him, Psalm 10:4, "In his pride the wicked does not seek him; in all his thoughts there is no room for God."

So that's why pride is so bad, it separates us from God, and it keeps us separate. Ouch.

BUT HOLD ON.

I thought this post was about humility, not pride!

Well, yes, but we had to start by seeing the need for humility.

Humility is the opposite of pride. If we're proud and we need to not be pride, we need humility. So what is humility and what does the Bible have to say about it?

I found Philippians 2:5-11 really helpful, "Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death - even death on a cross! Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father."

And God doesn't just say how much he hates pride, he also says how much he loves humility. Check out Psalm 149:4, "For the LORD takes delight in his people; he crowns the humble with salvation." Our reward for humility is... salvation?? Wow!

But what about now, practically? What does being humble look like? I really like the quote from C.S.Lewis in "the Freedom of Self Forgetfulness", "If we were ever to meet a truly humble person, Lewis says, we would never come away from meeting them thinking they were humble. They would not always be telling us they are a nobody (because a person who keeps saying they are a nobody is actually a self-obsessed person). The thing we would remember from meeting a truly gospel-humble person is how much they seemed to be totally interested in us. Because the essence of gospel-humility is not thinking more of myself or thinking less of myself, it is thinking of myself less."

Keller has a lot more good stuff to say in his book, and I really recommend reading it.

What's the problem though? Well, we're proud. We're born proud, raised proud and encouraged to be proud. And like we saw, pride leaves no room for God. It leaves no room for humility. So how are we meant to get humility? How are we meant to be humble? C.J.Mahaney suggests quite a few really good was of "cultivating" humility, and they're worth doing, they certainly help, but I think at the end of the day it comes to the Spirit. We need the Spirit to change us, because we're just so incapable of doing it ourselves. We need to realise what the problem is, and repeatedly ask for change, and it will come. Try to live by the Spirit, and the Spirit will get you to live by it!

One final quote. It's talking about love, but I reckon humility ties in pretty strongly with it, 1 Corinthians 13:4-7, "Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres."

Personally... I have realised just how proud I am in so many ways, and I'm sure there's a lot of ways I haven't realised yet. I'm very quick to dismiss other people's opinions, very quick to anger when people have something bad to say about me and so on. But it's actually really encouraging and exciting, now I'm aware of this, I can pray about it and work on it and watch God change me in it. Not trying to constantly satisfy your ego is pretty refreshing.