Day 4 - A Humble Heart
Listen To The Podcast
A Humble Heart - Bethany Bachman
In my experience, humility—like patience—is one of those “be careful what you pray for” virtues. God doesn’t simply grant us the ability, but instead gives us opportunity to grow in it. It’s no accident that “humility” and “humiliation” share the same root word (from humble, meaning, “on the ground.” How’s that for a word picture?). The circumstances that humble or humiliate us have the potential to train and build the muscle of humility.
Motherhood has been my personal training ground in humility. Some of that has come through a couple truly humiliating, public incidents, but I’ve also found that humbling myself is the key way I build trust with my kids. One of the most important things I’ve learned is to be playful, which is something that doesn’t come easily to me. When I’m tired or stressed, I lose my sense of humor, so being silly feels like moving a boulder when I try to do it in my own strength. But when I ask God for the strength to kill my pride and get down on the floor (or “on the ground”) with them, it always bonds us closer together. I know I’ve won when my daughter says, “Mommy, you’re so silly!”
Both the humility we choose and the humiliations we wish we could avoid point us to the heart of God because even in His omnipotence and holiness, He became one of us. He came near, not just appearing as a full-grown adult, but as a tiny, fragile embryo, who became a helpless baby, who learned to walk and talk as a toddler and to run and play as a child. Even though Scripture is silent on his adolescence, it makes sense that he also went on to be an awkward, stinky pre-teen and teenager. How humbling!
I said before that humbling or humiliating things in our lives “have the potential” to build humility. They won’t automatically have that effect because we have a choice to make about whether we will let them change and draw us near to the heart of God. Most of us avoid being humbled at all costs. We can all agree it’s only human to seek not humiliation, but admiration and respect, and even status and fame in this life. True humility is upside-down in this self-focused world.
Philippians 2 tells us Jesus, fully human (but not “only human”), didn’t “count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.” He drew near, humbling himself in every way, all the way up to being “obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.” With His help, we can learn to let humiliation do its work. Just as my daughter trusts me more when I come down on her level, so we too can trust and obey God better when we consider that He did the same thing.
Scripture Reading: Philippians 2:1-11
Spiritual Practice
Meditate on what it truly means that God become a human being, submitting to every part of the human experience. Consider how your own lack of humility has affected your relationship with family, friends, coworkers, and God. Confess it to Him and ask Him to help you to live in humility. Praise Him for drawing near to save us!
