Humility

Humble.  A word in which most people would like to be considered. To me, humility is the denouncement of any self righteousness. To elaborate, this means being meek hearted, finding incredible value in the lives of others and finding the importance of life outside of yourself- namely in the glorification of Jesus Christ.

For me, pride seems to be a running struggle. More and more I’m learning that pride is the foundation and life giver to all sin. Sin in essence, is the thought that the things of this world are more beneficial than the things of God. What is alarming is that sometimes these thoughts are inadvertent. I am often unaware of certain prideful areas in my life. This makes me wonder how many areas of my heart I am unaware of… how many sins that I commit that I’m oblivious to. Following these thoughts comes relief knowing that Jesus paid for the sins that we are aware of and that we are unaware of. He knows the darkest corners of our souls that have been explored by no one else and he still loves us… crazy thought.

The thought of pursuing humility seems like an oxymoron to me. Is striving to become humble a prideful action? In my mind when you pursue something, you have an end goal in mind and with humility that just can’t be the case. You will never reach a point where you are finally humble enough. It’s funny how the enemy can be so crafty with pride. When I become painfully aware of my pride and take the necessary steps to disarm it, it never fails, there is something that always happens when Satan points out to me “wow Lacey, that was really humble of you”, and in that moment I instantly build pride thinking… hmm… humility here I come! So ridiculous.

So, how then, do we go about leading a humble life? I don’t claim to know much about the matter, seeing as pride is a struggle of mine, but I believe that bringing yourself to the foot of the cross everyday might help. You see, meditating on the life of Jesus and the intense and beautiful sacrifice He made for us leave no room for pride. We can do nothing but bow and stand in awe the one who so graciously traded His perfect, holy, stainless righteousness for our utterly disgusting thing we call righteousness. Allowing His truth to penetrate and envelope our soul will cultivate Humility by His grace alone.

Micah 6:8

He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly before your God.