Is it just me, or does anyone else think humility is one of the harder virtues to take hold of?
With other qualities, it’s not hard to evaluate whether you have them or whether you don’t. Take love, for instance. You can look at your relationships and consider if you’re being loving, and it isn’t usually that hard to tell. Sometimes it can be challenging to discern what love looks like in a particular situation, but it’s not terribly mysterious to determine whether you’re approaching someone from an attitude of love, hate, or disinterest.
Humility is different. It’s difficult to define and slippery to grasp. As soon as you think you’ve mastered it, you’ve most likely lost hold of it. If someone tells you that they think you’re humble, it’s hard to know how to respond. If you reply, “Oh yes, I am,” that doesn’t sound humble. But if you say, “Am I really?”—what kind of a response is that? Shouldn’t you be able to accept the compliment without either bragging or doubting?
I don’t pretend to have the answers. But if, like me, you’ve wondered how this quiet quality is meant to be lived, I hope some of the thoughts I’m sharing today will be helpful.
contrasting portraits
One’s pride will bring him low, but he who is lowly in spirit will obtain honor.
Proverbs 29:23 (ESV)
Since humility is one of the quieter virtues, it’s easy to go unnoticed. It’s much easier to see if someone is proud than it is to tell if they’re humble.
Try this exercise. Describe for me what pride looks like. Without thinking about it much, you can probably conjure up an image of the consummate proud person: someone who struts about with his head held high, rarely deigning to look others in the eye. He knows more than everyone else in the room (at least so he thinks), and he knows it, and he wants to make sure they know it too. Wherever he is and whoever he is with, he needs to be the most important person present. If someone else is the center of attention, he squirms and fusses until the spotlight shifts back onto him.
Now describe someone who is humble. Is that harder? Most likely, more questions fill your mind than answers. Is a humble person simply the opposite of a proud person? Does she shuffle around with her head bowed, barely able to meet others’ gaze because she believes they’re better than her? Does she speak in hushed tones, deferring to those around her as superior, or does she remain quiet, thinking that what others contribute matters more than what she might have to say?
That can’t be right. She must have a confident spirit, firmly settled in the knowledge of who she is. But if she’s focused on herself, that isn’t humble, is it? Doesn’t being humble mean focusing on others?
See what I mean? Try to define humility, and things get complicated.
So what does humility look like—on the inside?
finding balance
Genuine, biblical humility is nothing more or less than knowing the truth of who we are in Christ. Only relationship with him can give us the genuine article. Jesus reveals to us two crucial truths about ourselves, and in the tension between these truths lies real humility. On the one hand he convicts us of our sin and fallenness, telling us our righteousness is really only filthy rags. And then in the next breath, smothering us with a big hug like the father of the prodigal son, he tells us how much we are valued, that in spite of our rebelliousness he loves us so much that he would rather die than live without us. That, then, is who I am. And that is who you are as well if you know him. We are men and women, boys and girls who are truly hopeless yet full of hope, truly lost but nonetheless truly found. We are shored up on either side so there is no room for false humility on one side or pride on the other.
— Michael Card
As the quote above states, humility begins with a proper view of God. Once we understand who we are before Him, a spirit of humility will follow. Knowing that we are His children—broken, beautiful, and beloved—captures the core of who we are and who we are becoming.
We are unworthy, yet He has bestowed on us matchless worth by the gift of His grace. As Romans 5:6-8 (CSB) says, “For while we were still helpless, at the right time, Christ died for the ungodly. For rarely will someone die for a just person—though for a good person perhaps someone might even dare to die. But God proves his own love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
Because of His great love, God chose to reach down and lift us out of our helpless state, making us sons and daughters of the Most High. He humbled Himself to become one of us so that we could be made like Him.
Do nothing out of rivalry or conceit, but in humility consider others as more important than yourselves. Everyone should look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others. Make your own attitude that of Christ Jesus, who, existing in the form of God, did not consider equality with God as something to be used for His own advantage. Instead He emptied Himself by assuming the form of a slave, taking on the likeness of men. And when He had come as a man in His external form, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death—even to death on a cross. For this reason God highly exalted Him and gave Him the name that is above every name…
— Philippians 2:3-9 (HCSB)
Today and always, for the sake of Christ, let’s choose to take hold of humility.
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