Over the past few months, one of the areas where God has been speaking to me is about humility. As important as humility is for our journey as Christians, it can be difficult to understand what genuine humility is and how it’s different from pride. I’d like to share a few things I’ve learned about humility–two of them are about what I call false humility, and two of them are about genuine humility. The part of scripture that illustrates this is Moses meeting with God–the story of the burning bush–in Exodus 3:1-4:17.
False humility 1: Lowliness
I was given the opportunity this fall to teach a course at Tyndale Seminary. Back in May when I was first offered the opportunity, I had mixed feelings. On one hand, I was really excited to have the opportunity to teach. It’s what I’ve always wanted to do! On the other hand, I was nervous about the prospect of teaching. Was I experienced enough? Qualified enough? Knowledgeable enough? These questions bugged me over the summer and made me pretty anxious.
Were these feelings of inadequacy or lowliness a form of humility? I don’t think so. They were actually fear. Maybe it was the same kind of fear that Moses felt when God first gave him the task to go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt (Exodus 3:10). The question he asked God was, “who am I (to do this)?” (Exo. 3:11). It wasn’t so different from the question I was asking God. Who am I to teach this course?
Genuine humility 1: Love
God had to speak to me about these feelings of inadequacy or lowliness. I was reminded of this: humility is not about thinking less of yourself, but thinking about yourself less. What I realized was that much of my anxiety and insecurity was because I was focusing entirely on myself: It was about my qualifications, my experience, my knowledge. What God had to teach me is that maybe teaching was not about me. It’s similar for Moses: if we read what God says to Moses in Exodus 3:7-10, it’s really not about Moses. It’s about what God wanted to do.
God was teaching me a lesson about humility. I was anxious about teaching, but my anxiety was because I was focused entirely on myself. But the call to humility is not to focus on ourselves. Genuine humility is actually to focus on God, and focus on others–in a phrase, it’s the greatest commandment (Matthew 22:36-39). I began to realize that teaching was not about me, but about what God wanted to do. As I began to press into that kind of thinking, my focus began to shift away from myself, and toward God and others. I was able to release much of my anxiety and fear. Shifting that focus away from me naturally made me less anxious because I was less worried about myself.
False humility 2: Pride
Genuine humility 2: Teachability
When God asks Moses to be a part of the plan to bring the Israelites out of Egypt, one of Moses’s protests is simple. Moses says, “Please, my Lord, just send someone else” (Exodus 4:13). Moses was saying, “this is just not for me.”
One of the most subtle and dangerous forms of pride is the idea, “this is just not for me.” To be honest, in everything we do as a church–Sunday messages, worship, book studies, discipleship–there will always be things we can find to criticize. There is always some way that things will rub us the wrong way.
The real problem surfaces when we allow our criticisms to make us dismissive. We dismiss Sunday worship, a message, or some learning material because “it’s just not for me.” The problem is that such dismissiveness can get in the way of what God is doing and saying. God may be wanting to speak to us through the song, the book, or the lesson, but if we check out mentally, we will miss what God is trying to say.
What humility looks like here is to be teachable. In Mark 4:1-20, Jesus shares the parable of the sower. A farmer goes out to sow seeds. Some fall on a path and are eaten by birds, some fall on a rocky place and are scorched by the sun, some fall among thorns and are choked by them, and some fall on good soil. One lesson we can draw from this parable is simple–be good soil. Be receptive to God speaking, don’t be dismissive. If you have ears, hear, if you have eyes, see (Mark 4:9-12). Don’t allow criticism, judgment, or pride to eat up or choke out what God may be trying to say.
My prayer is that we would be people who excel in genuine humility. May we always be on alert for the subtle forces of pride in our life, and learn to love God and others more and stay teachable.