Gospel Humble

Would like to take a moment and thank the new readers and subscribers, and also the faithful few, you're awesome. My goal is to provide you with top notch content that will encourage, inspire, and add value to your life. This will not be just another blog,  I promise. Writing affords me the opportunity to learn and go to the experts, libraries, and the Bible in search for answers. With that, this will probably be my last post on blogger. I will be transitioning to Wordpress in the coming months.

It's hard to make it through one day without feeling snubbed, or ignored, or getting down ourselves. My friends, the ego often hurts. It is void, inflated, busy, and delicate. It's all jacked up. It always makes us think how we look and how we feel, it's constantly drawing attention to itself. When incubated long enough, the ego produces pride, and I'm not referring to the good kind of pride. "I'm really proud of the job I did today." No, I'm referring to the ugly, and it's defined as a high or inordinate opinion of one's own dignity, importance, merit, or superiority. Augustine said, "It's the love of one's own excellence." Now if I were a tea drinker, I'd take a sip with my pinky up.

I write this week to those who struggle with pride, to those who seem to connect every experience with themselves. I write to you, I write to myself. Pride camouflages itself and creeps in as simply passion and hard work, but overtakes the soul as compliments, prestige, and the limelight distort our vision. Ever thought it was a great idea to share your greatest achievements and your vast extensive knowledge? Only to realize how foolish you were soon after? I'm guilty. The purpose of this post is to help us side step foolishness and provide the sustenance necessary to make the "ugly" pride in our lives, a thing of the past.

In his book the Freedom of Self Forgetfulness, author Tim Keller says,

"Pride gets no pleasure out of having something, only out of having more of it than the next person. We say that people are proud of being rich, or clever, or good looking, but they are not. They are proud of being richer, or cleverer, or better looking than others. If everyone else became equally rich, or clever, or good looking, there would be nothing to be proud about. " In other words, we are only proud of being more successful, more intelligent, or more good looking than the next person, and when we are in the presence of someone of who is more successful, intelligent, and good looking than we are, we lose all the pleasure we had.

Poof...can you smell the gun smoke?

The dictionary defines humility as having a “low view of one’s own importance.” But the Latin root of the word, means “to lower yourself,” or as Professor John Dickson advises, "It's the noble choice to forgo your status, deploy your resources, and use your influence for the good of others before yourself." CS Lewis goes on to say, "If we truly met a humble person, we would never come away thinking they were humble. They would not always be telling us they were a nobody. The thing we would remember from meeting a truly gospel-humble person is how much they seemed to be 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."

 A gospel humble person doesn't need to connect every experience and every conversation with themselves. They stop thinking thoughts such as , "I'm in this room with these people, does that make me look good? Do I want to be here?" According to Phillip Brooks, "The true way to be humble is not to stoop until you are smaller than yourself, but to stand at your real height against some higher nature that will show you what the real smallness of your greatness is." True humility is the attitude and practice of putting others first, no matter who they are. It's Jesus washing the feet of his disciples. That is humility. Jesus didn't forget who He was or what He was capable of, He simply chose to serve and lead by example. Shouldn't we? He said, "A student is not greater than his teacher, nor a slave His master."

What can we do?

• Simple and effective, pray for humility everyday. Can you honestly say, "Give me neither poverty nor riches, just give me my daily bread?" (We're not praying to be poor, we're saying, "Our main focus is You, and I want a God-shaped heart") 

•  Don't worry what others are thinking about you. They're simply thinking about  themselves like everyone else. 

• Welcome criticism, because there are no shortcuts to growth. It isn't much fun to hear it, but I know of nothing else that inspires change like well received constructive criticism.

• You don't always have to know the answer, risk looking stupid. You will learn something new and you'll naturally be more approachable by those around you. Be honest with yourself, and be known for who you really are.

"The Lord is good and does what is right; He shows the proper path to those who go astray. He leads the humble in doing right, teaching them his way."