Humility: Humbling Yourself

Humility involves a great deal of effort, especially when society teaches us to be proud of our status. However, that is the opposite of how God’s kingdom works and Jesus showed us that when He decided to wash the disciples’ feet before the crucifixion. Humility can be shown and achieved in a few different ways. One, by admitting that God is fully in control. Two, by acknowledging that you are no better than anyone else, no matter what your status in society is. And three, by remembering the first two points when you decide to open your mouth and talk about people and gossip about them. 

Acknowledging that God is fully in control doesn’t sound very freeing, but it really is and is something I'm slowly learning to do. It takes a lot of the responsibility off of someone so that the trials of life does not have to rest fully on an individual. Trusting anyone is hard, but trusting God is a huge task all in itself, which is why most people don’t like to relinquish the control they think they have over their life in the first place. When you decide to humble yourself to God’s will, that’s when you give room for Him to bring miracles into your life. “Humble yourselves before the Lord, and He will lift you up.” James 4:10.

“Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall.” Proverbs 16:18. When you are extremely prideful and arrogant, destruction will always follow. When you start to realize that you are no better than anyone else, that’s where humility comes in. It's hard to like someone who is full of pride to the point they don't listen to advice and only boast about themselves. There is no reasoning with them. They are quick to talk and slow to listen. Only God is always right and has every right to be prideful and arrogant. But, that is not at all the attitude God portrays. His Spirit is humble, gentle, kind, patient, and more. He is the definition of love, and as His children, that’s how we should be too. 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 says it like this: “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, 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.”

My final point is about gossiping and I will use my own experience from last week to draw on it. I was talking about someone I hadn’t even met yet when they overheard me talking about them. Suddenly, I was confronted by them with them remarking that what I said wasn’t true. After thinking about it, I realized that my source talks negatively about almost everyone and that I should start taking what they say  and what others say about anyone with a grain of salt. Needless to say, I ended up apologizing by a gentle prompting from the Holy Spirit, and the person I was talking about ended up apologizing too for the way they confronted me. We ended up having a good conversation with me explaining who I was and told them how God was slowly working on changing me for the better. I also said I would tell the people I was talking to about them that I was wrong about what I just said, which I did. The fact that the person I offended ended up apologizing too showed me that the information I got about them wasn’t right and that I needed to stop gossiping so much in general. It was a very humbling experience that brought me to my spiritual knees. “Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear.” Ephesians 4:29

Humility refers to a quality of being humble where being humble are the acts that lead up to having humility. If everyone in the world practiced humility, there would be less strife and fewer altercations over people boasting about themselves just to make someone else feel less adequate. The first step in practicing humility is to submit yourself to God and then start treating people the way you would want to be treated. I have been around many painfully arrogant and prideful people in my life, and so, I’m having to relearn the correct way to be and how to treat people. It is not an easy task, but it is one I am willing to accomplish so that I can be a better person and raise my daughter to be a better person too. “Humility is not thinking less of yourself; it is thinking of yourself less.” -C.S. Lewis.