“For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”
Luke 14:11
Last week in our pastoral meeting we had a good conversation about pride and humility. In some ways, humility can feel like a moving target. The moment we think we’ve mastered humility, is probably when we’re falling into pride! Growing in humility is a journey we’re all on, and one that never really ends. But it helps to have some pointers of what the signs of pride are, and the signs of genuine humility.
One of the first things I’ve learned about humility is this: humility is not thinking less of yourself, but thinking of yourself less. We can sometimes get the idea that being proud of something is the opposite of humility. So we go about not taking pride in anything in our lives. We try to be low, downplaying our successes and highlighting our faults.
But being low is not really at the heart of humility. The problem with this kind of humility is that it’s ultimately self-centred. We’re worried about looking prideful, so we try to lower ourselves. But at the center of all this activity is still us. If we’re still at the center, it may still be pride!
Humility is not thinking lowly of ourselves or thinking of ourselves in a more “humble” light. It’s about thinking about ourselves less. It’s about shifting the focus in our lives away from ourselves, and to the first and second commandment–loving God and loving others. The more we grow in love for God and others, the less we worry about ourselves. That’s the true heart of humility.
So how do we deal with pride in our lives? How do we start to get out of patterns of self-centeredness?
One of the most powerful ways is brokenness. Around 10 years ago, the leaders of our youth group (Overflow) met to talk about our group’s core values, and put some of that on paper. One of the first core values we landed on was brokenness. We recognized how important it was, and why it needed to be part of everything we do.
It’s important to understand what we meant by brokenness here. Brokenness is not about having a life that’s falling apart. It’s not about beating ourselves up, or having our spirit broken by bad circumstances. Brokenness is about realizing how badly we need God. It’s about coming to terms with how weak and fragile we truly are, and how much we depend on God. Brokenness here isn’t only for those in bad circumstances or people who are feeling lowly. We all need to be reminded, pretty much daily, of how much we depend on God. To forget our dependence on God is part of pride.
When we embrace this kind of brokenness, we start to see not only ourselves differently but others differently as well. We start to realize that we’re no better than our neighbor, because we all have a desperate need for God. This makes us a whole lot less judgmental, and much more compassionate to those around us. We learn to love and care for others more, and love God more. All of this brings about a real humility.
May we always strive to grow in the grace of humility. May we grow in love for God and love for others daily. And as we embrace our brokenness, may we realize how deeply we need God, and begin to look on others with more care and compassion.