Humility is a difficult part of Christian living. It's easily misunderstood and looked over. One section says that humility is being walked over. Another sections says that humility is weak.
Both are wrong. Let's get a clearer picture of humility. To be a humble person isn't being a person who dismisses attention or plays a martyr. Being humble doesn't mean you live poorly or look down on people with money.
Truly, I've come to understand humility as understanding who you are before God. Like a prism that reflects the rainbow, so does understanding who we are when Christ shines His light in us. How do we act though when another human being, made in the image of God, hurts us deeply?
When we are hurt, it’s so easy to put up walls.
It’s easy to accuse and deflect.
When someone tells us we did something wrong, our pride pulls out a long list of wrongs done to us.
But humility is keeping an open heart about difficult situations. Humility works hard to stay sweet and not bitter. Humility is understanding that we don’t have the full story. Humility is willing to be wrong.
Humility is valuing love above all things.
Humility takes a lot of work, examination and dying to self. Dying to tell your side of the story. Humility is knowing that God will have His way. Humility is not trusting in yourself to get even. That's so hard when you have been wronged and feel justified to do wrong. It's hard being spat on and feeling like you have to roll with the punches. How do you keep going when the world tells you that you are so justified in how you feel? How do you not grow bitter and jealous when it looks like the ungodly go unpunished?
Ultimately it all comes down to love.
Love is not surface feelings of euphoria. Rather love is a deep abiding choice that is willing to forgive again and again.
That type of love is where humility lives. The humility that Jesus showed us is a humility we can have.
“Is there any encouragement from belonging to Christ? Any comfort from his love? Any fellowship together in the Spirit? Are your hearts tender and compassionate? Then make me truly happy by agreeing wholeheartedly with each other, loving one another, and working together with one mind and purpose. Don’t be selfish; don’t try to impress others. Be humble, thinking of others as better than yourselves. Don’t look out only for your own interests, but take an interest in others, too. You must have the same attitude that Christ Jesus had.”
Philippians 2:1-5 NLT
The only way to have this type of love is to receive it. We cannot manufacture feelings of love for people. We cannot pretend that everything is okay. We will only be able to do that for so long. But genuine love is something that must be received. It must be experienced. Christians tend to get head smart. They know all the scriptures about God's love and how we're called to forgive. We throw them in the faces of hurting people trying to navigate difficult situations. In doing so we become stale to the truth of those scriptures. We've gotten so used to knowing that we've forgotten the most important part of being a Christian- living it out.
Living out the love that we have been given is to go back and remember it again. It's to put yourself in the light of the Cross. To understand the weight and glory which Christ died for us. It's to consider where we were in our sins. It's to remember the forgiveness and grace we've received. It's to live out in newness again. It's to remember that Jesus was human too...
That He knows what it means to live out humility. He knows what it's like to be spat on. Misunderstood. Ostracized.
So as you work through your pain, remember that humility is something that keeps us grounded through it all. It reminds us that the God we serve sees our battle and has overcome. We are just learning how to walk out the victory.
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