Humility

Humility

Tuesday, May 17, 2016
Jeff Lampl

“Humble yourself before the Lord and he will lift you up when the time is right”  1 Peter 5:6.

We are told to humble ourselves.   Here’s how I’ve learned to do it. . . . .

First, it is important to place ourselves “under” people.  We are told to treat others as “better than ourselves” (Philippians 2:3).    For me the most difficult way to do this, and perhaps the most important, is to listen, to be “all there” when anyone is speaking to me.   Sometimes I find myself evaluating conversations, thinking of some as more important than others.  But I don’t think I’m very good at evaluating correctly.   Too often I evaluate conversations, based on how valuable the person is to my purposes rather than on how important that person is to God, and how important my attentiveness is to that person.   It may be that my ear is the only ear that will truly ‘hear’ them when they desperately need to be heard.

Second it is important to be attentive to my pride.  Each time I become defensive, or find myself criticizing another, or find myself gloating that I was right about something or become overly impressed or depressed about a teaching I have given, I know that behind those emotions is pride, the desire to think of myself highly in comparison to others.   Behind pride is the need to be “better than”.   Each time I find that in myself I can be sure that I am being acted on, not by God, but by the devil.    I have even found myself becoming proud of humble, which of course mean that whatever humility actually existed disappeared the moment I noticed it.  The moment I think I am becoming humble is the very moment at which I can be sure that I am proud.

There is good news and, of course, it is the Good News which is the Gospel.   Each time I recognize my sin, my pride, my selfishness and rather than dismissing it, instead admit it, I am at that moment in a place where God can take His rightful place in my will, heart and mind.  Perhaps our place of humility is found in the two profound clauses in this summary of the Gospel. “I am more sinful/prideful/selfish than I can ever know, AND I am more loved than I can ever imagine”.  

“Lord, may I become more like Jesus.   May it be so that I become so aware of you and of others that I have no need to seek humility, rather in my attentiveness to you, to others and to the tasks you give me, pride finds itself blocked from its insidious entry into my heart.  Yet when it does find its way in, Lord, let see it, painful as that may be, let me admit it and accept your forgiveness and your love.   Amen”

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