Humility
Now, it’s back to ~ Dinner With A Friend + A Great Book. As I said back on Day 2, after a long dinner and discussion, my friend told me about a book she had read. The title is Absolute Surrender by Andrew Murray, just to remind you. When I received the book, I got a bonus. The title of the book was Humility and Absolute Surrender. I just couldn’t skip over the first part. I was totally drawn to the very word humility.
One of the firsts things that I did (I always do this, because it helps me grasp the meaning) is check out my trusty online Dictionary. This is what I found.
“Humility is the quality or state of being humble. Humble: not proud or haughty: not arrogant or assertive: reflecting, expressing or offered in a spirit of deference (respect and esteem due a superior or elder; regard for another’s wishes) or submission” Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary
I am reminded of a sight that I saw, while we were on mission in an Asian country a few years ago. We were walking around in a public area and we noticed a crowd hovered around something. As we looked closer at what was happening, this is what we saw. An authority person had put an older lady on the ground. She was on her knees with head bowed down, and the authority person was humiliating her. We don’t know why. She may have been caught in an act of theft. We can only speculate. She was being subjected to severe embarrassment. There were at least 25 people standing around this woman, gawking at her shame. I will never forget the picture of mortification planted in my mind.
Humility, as a spiritual virtue, is different from the act of humiliation or shame. I want to give you a quote I found from an article that incorporates text from the public-domain ‘Catholic Encyclopedia of 1913.
“Humility is defined as, a quality by which a person considering his own defects has a humble opinion of himself and willingly submits himself to God and to others for God’s sake…Humility is said to be the foundation of the spiritual edifice (structure) and inferior only to faith. However, humility is considered the first virtue inasmuch as it removes the obstacles to faith. It removes pride and makes a man subject to and a fit recipient of grace; according to the words of St James, God resisteth the proud, and giveth his grace to the humble. (see James 4:6) True humility is distinctly different from false humility, which consists of deprecating (play down or make little of) one’s own sanctity, gifts, talents, and accomplishments for the sake of receiving praise or adulation (admiration) from others.” End Quote (I added the definitions where needed-Pam)
Yes, I agree, that is a lot to swallow. But you have to admit, it is very thought-provoking (read it 2 or 3 times).
I was in a Sunday School class and we were discussing righteous (the standards of God) behavior. One person brought up the subject of our reactions and judgmental comments toward people who are not easy to deal with, and those who do things to draw attention to themselves. One person gave an example of someone she knows that does a lot of drawing attention to themselves. And she said, “You could never talk to this attention getter about their character flaw, so I just give them attention. That’s what they want, so that’s how I deal with them!” Add a little tone of sarcasm (I’ll kill ya with what you want) and you get the drift of the statement. This person making the statement obviously didn’t get it. And I wondered to myself, do I get it? Do you get it?
Today, think about what it means to Be Humble. Read Philippians 2:1-17 (Christ’s Humility)
Write, in your own words, a definition of humility. __________________________
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Quote to Ponder: “Humility is the bloom and the beauty of holiness” Andrew Murray
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