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| “In a very real sense not one of us is qualified, but it seems that God continually chooses the most unqualified to do his work, to bear his glory. If we are qualified, we tend to think that we have done the job ourselves. If we are forced to accept our evident lack of qualification, then there's no danger that we will confuse God's work with our own, or God's glory with our own.” ― |
Jesus said, “12All who exalt
themselves will be humbled, and all who humble themselves will be exalted.”
Kendrick Lamar says, “Stay humble.”
I recently had a big slice of ‘humble pie.’
Humility.
“Freedom from pride or arrogance.”
Humble—down-to-earthiness.
That one is my favorite.
I talked with Laura Elliott today bout humility. She took me
on an adventure that started with hummus and ended in earthy-ness.
Eugene Peterson put it this way:
“The Latin words humus,
soil/earth, and homo, human being, have a common derivation, from which we also
get our word ‘humble.’
This is the Genesis origin of
who we are: dust— dust that the Lord God used to make us a human being. If we
cultivate a lively sense of our origin and nurture a sense of continuity with
it, who knows, we may also acquire humility.”
To be humble means to be aware of our dusty-ness. To be
humble means to acknowledge our lowliness, not in some self-deprecating, John
Calvin way. But to never lose sight of our connection to creation and thus the
Creator. We are mud balls which have been breathed into life by the Divine
Breath.
Humility.
I don’t know what humility looks like. I didn’t have a good
picture from today, or so I thought. I mean, I could have taken a picture of
the four-year-old who asked me, “How did God get in the sky?” Or I could go
outside right now (if my camera didn’t get damaged in my accident) and take a
picture of the last full moon of the decade. Or I could post a photo of a
journal entry in which I work through a new situation in which I didn’t
display humility.
Instead, I have this photo. A painting by one of my students
from The Center for Creativity & Community. The blue of the sky, the white
of the clouds, and the greenness of Kermit speak humility to me. This student
created this from the raw resources he had in front of him. I’m humbled that he
made it for me; I admire his humility and his mindfulness of gifting me with this
painting. In some way, this painting reminds me of the shared humanity I have
with him. It somehow reminds me of Christ, who emptied himself, lowered
himself, to the point of death on a cross so that I might know Love.
Humility.
A way of sinking down into the mud to discover a
way of being that allows us to experience the world as alive and part of who we
are.
The moon, the child, the paint, and the earth—all keep me
humble.
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