Humility is not about convincing ourselves or others that we are unattractive or incompetent. It is not about ‘beating ourselves up’ or trying to make ourselves nothing. If God wanted to make us nothing, he could have done it. Humility has to do with submitted willingness. It involves a healthy self-forgetfulness. We will know we have begun to make progress in humility when we find that we get so enabled by the Holy Spirit to live in the moment that we cease to be preoccupied with ourselves , one way or the other. When we are with others, we are truly with them, not wondering how they can be of benefit to us. Indeed, humility involves a Copernican revolution of the soul, the realization that the universe does not revolve around us. Humility always brings a kind of relief.
…
Humility, if ever we could grow into it, would not be a burden. It would be an immense gift. Humility is the freedom to stop trying to be what we’re not, or pretending to be what we’re not, and accepting our ‘appropriate smallness.’ In Luther’s words, humility is the decision to ‘let God be God.’” (p. 102)
from John Ortberg’s ‘The Life You’ve Always Wanted’
I get small, and I do mean small, glimmers of this in my own life from time to time. Slipping out of me long enough to let God be God. Those tiny moments always leave HUGE footprints in this little world around me. Truly amazing.
It’s true….but seems a paradox in the worlds eyes…the more humble I become, the more I sense my worth in His eyes.
Not sure if that makes any sense.
You’d think that the more humble I’d become I’d feel like a loser. Instead it makes me grateful.
Emily
[...] she has been learning how to make herself humble, not that she has been trying to humble me). See her latest post on the subject here. I think I have finally reached a point where I see a certain truth to this virtue: namely, that [...]