Developing Humility: that's a seminar title that brings people flocking to register like "Improving Your Oral Hygiene Habits" or "Keeping Your Checkbook Balanced"!
Developing humility is one of those "unglamorous" and "unnoticed" things that seem like a lot of work for little to no glory or recognition. Generally speaking, people don't pay proper attention to areas like flossing or checkbook balancing or humility until problems develop from a lack of maintenance in those areas. Bad breath or excessive cavities can drive us to disciplined flossing habits. Overdraft notices and bank charges can encourage us to stay on top of our finances.
But what can drive us to feel the need for humility? We live in a culture that promotes pride and accomplishment and conspicuous consumption.
Proverbs 16:18 says: "Pride goes before destruction and a haughty spirit before stumbling." (New American Standard Version)
What does pride destroy? It can destroy good relationships, it can cost you a job or a sale or your ability to make wise decisions.
In his book Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis calls pride "a spiritual cancer: it eats up the very possibility of love, or contentment, or even common sense." He contends that pride will prevent us from having intimacy with God, who desires to free us of pride, allowing us to become "delightedly humble, feeling the infinite relief of having for once got rid of all the silly nonsense about your own dignity which has made you restless and unhappy all your life."
We make ourselves so miserable, in our own pursuit of dignity and pride, that we completely eclipse the presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives, who would bring humility and freedom as refreshing as "a drink of cold water to a man in a desert."
What will I look like if I become humble? Will I go around in mismatched clothes or will I be constantly describing my faults and shortcomings to other people? Not at all! This just draws undue attention to myself, if the mismatched clothes are a choice and not a necessity, and becomes another manifestation of pride.
"Do not imagine that if you meet a really humble man he will be what most people call 'humble' nowadays: he will not be a sort of greasy, smarmy (insincere) person, who is always telling you that, of course, he is nobody. Probably all you will think about him is that he seemed a cheerful, intelligent chap who took a real interest in what you said to him. If you do dislike him it will be because you feel a little envious of anyone who seems to enjoy life so easily. He will not be thinking about humility: he will not be thinking about himself at all."
(Quotations from Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis, Collier Books-Macmillan Publishing Co., New York, New York, copyright 1943, Book 3: Chapter 8: The Great Sin)
--Posted by Mama O.
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