A Call to Humility
If I could secretly reach into the heart of every man and turn the knobs, the first one I’d look for would be labeled Humility. It would have an arrow pointing one way toward Humble and one the other way labeled Proud. Crank up the humility and you’re turning down the pride. I’d crank humility all the way up.
The word “humility” comes from the same root word as “humus” which means fertile ground. When a man is humble, he becomes fertile ground for God to grow stuff in . . . stuff like love, peace, joy, patience, kindness, gentleness, faithfulness, goodness, and self-control. Pride is the opposite. It says, “I’ve got this,” “I don’t need help,” “I know what I need to know.” Pride grows arrogance and isolation . . . rarely wisdom or relational intimacy.
Humility has nothing to do with intelligence or competence. It’s about attitude. We behave based on what we believe. When we believe we’re awesome . . . better than others, deserving of what we have and more, we’ll have an attitude of pride and arrogance. When pride drives us, we press and compete and push ourselves to the top. We stick out our chests as we get the awards and paychecks and trophies. But it’s really hard to grow in wisdom at the same time.
John Lynch writing about his Mensa dad in On My Worst Day . . . “I wonder if many extremely intelligent people fail to learn great wisdom because they lack the humility demanded to receive it.”
Humility is sometimes translated as “meek.” In the sermon on the mount, Jesus said, “Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth” (Matthew. 5:5). To me, He’s saying humble people recognize it all belongs to God to start with . . . that we can inherit what He wants to give us. Humble people start with a clear perspective that everything is His. We have our life, our breath, our being, and our hope in Him. Humble people grasp that it all would end in death except for Grace. Which leads them to gratitude.
Turn your knob to humble and watch as people are drawn to you, want to help you, and have empathy for you and your situation. Pride repels people. Humility attracts people and God’s favor. Proverbs 3:34 says “He has no use for conceited people, but shows favor to those who are humble.”
Jesus only ever used two adjectives to describe himself: “for I am gentle and humble of heart.” The Bible (especially Proverbs) is packed with warnings about pride and promises for the humble. If you want to be like Jesus, you want to be humble. It’s a choice. You and I get to make it every day, in every interaction.
Scripture: Don’t be jealous or proud, but be humble and consider others more important than yourselves. (Philippians 2:3)
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Responses (2)
Regi, You’ve captured the essence of servant leadership in this post. Thank you for being a humble man who understands the significance of humility.
John Dickson wrote HUMILITAS and was a speaker at the 2011 Global Leadership Conference from Willow Creek. Awesome experience. It’s happening again this August in thousands of venues around the world.
In VERY SIMPLE terms, the definition of Humility has three parts. “My Decision”….. “To Use My Power”….. “To Benefit Someone Else.”
So, humility is first a decision, not a position in life. The homeless person living under the bridge lives in HUMBLE circumstances, but is not necessarily humble, because humility is a proactive decision!
Second, powerless people don’t decide to be humble. I think of Mother Teresa. She could have had the POPE on the phone in under a minute and requested anything she wanted, but she chose to live among poor children in Calcutta. That was a DECISION to use her POWER to benefit others, and not herself.
Finally, benefiting someone else is a big deal for those who have power and resources to edify themselves. The decision to use one’s power to benefit himself is ARROGANCE, not humility.
You, Regi, are a demonstration of humility. You’ve CHOSEN to use your POWER and RESOURCES to benefit OTHERS rather than yourself.
Well done, good and faithful servant.
Don’t you love those words?~!!!!!
Food for thought.
Ray Snyder
Charleston, SC
Ray, this is great information. Thanks for sharing it with us. I look forward to catching up with you soon. I want to hear the story from your first Radical Mentoring group.
Regi