Humility, for me, has always meant thinking less of your self. I chose to practice humility as my spiritual discipline for this past week and going into it I felt confused. I never had a firm grasp of what humility was or how to practice it. How do you practice humility? I soon learned that humility is not thinking less of yourself but it is more of thinking of yourself less. To be humble you don't have to brake yourself or shatter your confidence in anyway, but just put others above yourself and do it without wanting or gaining anything in return. Philippians 2: 5-11 sets a tone for humility, at least in my eyes. It involves so much truth, but the part that affects me the most is when Paul says, "Christ humbled himself to death, even death on a cross." Christ chose to die for us, He came to share His good news and then to sacrifice Himself to pay our debt. This is the ultimate form of humility. Christ put the need of sinners, the poor, the women, the children, of all people before himself. This example truly pulled me down to reality. I in every way failed in humility. I am a selfish unsacrificial person. I challenged myself this past week to put others before myself and I failed. I tried and at times I did, I did put others first, but there were so many time where I didn't. You can't perfect humility in a week and probably in a lifetime, but you have to start somewhere.
I found toward the end of the week that to begin to practice humility you must first be content. As the Apostle Paul says numerous times through the Corinthians and his Epistles that we must be content with our lives. Paul was in prison and yet he was content with his life. He was content because he acknowledged that it wasn't his life it was, it was the life God had given him so he is content in it. Our lives our gifts from God in which we have no right to be selfish or caught up in appearance, but we a re called to be content. "A true Christian-in-me self is deeply at home in God and in its own skin." Being content is an aspect of humility that is at its core and where I found a need to begin. Being content with my life and my skin is hard, but it's possible. I have spent less and less time each day over the past week worrying about what I am going to wear and how I look. "The humble person is truly free."
The last part of humility I looked at was honesty. To truly be humble you must be open and honest with yourself. "Humility stems from an honest understanding of who we are." Richard Rohr once said, "Humility and honesty are really the same thing. A humble person is simply a brutally honest person about the whole truth. You and I come along a few years ago; we're going to be gone in a few years. The only honest response to life is a humble one." Honesty is the foundation of humility, when we can be completely honest with ourselves is when we are content with ourselves and can be a truly humble believer. Humility leads us to be honest and open to the constant need for grace. Humility opens so many doors to be and effective witness for God. Humility is the building block for all other spiritual disciplines and is a part of every aspect of our faith.
"Humble people let go of image management and self promotion. They honor others by making the others' needs as real and important as their own." Don't think to highly of your self or to poorly, but be content with the gift God has given you and then you can partake in humility and be an Evangelist that it a positive example set by Christ. Humility is the key to an evangelical life. Go out, be humble, be content, and honor God.
In His Name,
David Mann
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