I know I’ve used this word a lot, and I think it’s time to start unpacking it. Humility seems to keep coming up in most of my posts, granted there aren’t that many, and I’m sure most of you who are reading already know me enough to know how I try to remain humble. However, it’s time to try and get at the nuances of this oft-used, oft-misused, and oft-misunderstood word. Likewise, it’s probably one of the most important words we should remember when we are trying to speak into our world.
I say that because words can often carry as much pain as healing, especially when we are talking about God. In faith, we attempt to speak as prophets into a given situation, hoping to bring forth some wisdom from source of our own peace, and we can be slammed by people both inside and outside the church. Then, we respond with the emotions that well up inside of us; feelings of hurt, anger, and the need to defend ourselves and the God we have declared. Before long we have an argument where lines are being drawn and sides are being taken while others walk away shaking their heads. Our good intentions become nothing more than another battlefield where rhetoric is the hill to be claimed.
So, where does humility fit in this equation? Why should we care at all about being humble when we speak what our experience has told us is truth? Here’s where it can get very challenging for many of us. I think we should begin this discussion by trying to look and see just exactly what is meant by the world “humble.”
When I try to employ humility in my life, I think about correlating it to the word “wisdom.” Socrates has a great story about wisdom where he is told to be the wisest man in the world by an oracle. In order to prove or disprove her statement, he travels around to other wise men and poses the same question. Their answers are uniform in that they believe themselves to be the wisest person in the world. Socrates then decides that he must be the wisest person, because he knows he is not wise.
In my mind, humility is similar to this. Once a person says they have, they have just lost it. Therefore, in essence, by writing this post, I am not humble, but that can be a philosophical discussion for another day. What we can continue on with is this idea that humility is illusory at times, and fragile at best. As a Christian, I also find humility to be similar to patience, in that if I as God for it in prayer, then I don’t actually get humility. Instead, I get circumstances that allow me to build my humility.
But we still need a definition for what actually IS humility. The Merriam-Webster dictionary lists humble as:
1: not proud or haughty : not arrogant or assertive
2: reflecting, expressing, or offered in a spirit of deference or submission
3a : ranking low in a hierarchy or scale : insignificant, unpretentious
b : not costly or luxurious
Easton’s Bible dictionary says that humility is a great paradox in Christianity because it is the avenue to glory.
What do we do with so little to discuss? There is the real question. As a Christian, I was often told that humility had everything to do with how human beings viewed themselves before God. That in relation to the greatness of the infinite, the finite should remember their place. Maybe here is where we should begin. Thomas Aquinas wrote in Suma Theologica that the only thing we can say about God with any certainty, is what God is not.
These ideas remind me that I have to temper my statements about what God wants, how God works, or what God is doing with the idea that I might be totally wrong. That is, if I’m going to remember my place in front of God as a part of the Creation, then I have to be willing to change as I come to understand what is the infinite magnitude of that which I worship. Yes, I do have Holy Scripture to guide me, and the Holy Spirit to counsel me, but I’m still human.
We can look at our history and see this. There were pastors on both sides of the debate on slavery and civil rights in America, and now we have them on both sides of the LGBT debate. I won’t say that one is following the Bible and the other is not, but I will say that we should be humble when we begin to declare that something is God’s way of looking at an issue. Maybe this way we can have a conversation and not just a shouting match.
I say that because words can often carry as much pain as healing, especially when we are talking about God. In faith, we attempt to speak as prophets into a given situation, hoping to bring forth some wisdom from source of our own peace, and we can be slammed by people both inside and outside the church. Then, we respond with the emotions that well up inside of us; feelings of hurt, anger, and the need to defend ourselves and the God we have declared. Before long we have an argument where lines are being drawn and sides are being taken while others walk away shaking their heads. Our good intentions become nothing more than another battlefield where rhetoric is the hill to be claimed.
So, where does humility fit in this equation? Why should we care at all about being humble when we speak what our experience has told us is truth? Here’s where it can get very challenging for many of us. I think we should begin this discussion by trying to look and see just exactly what is meant by the world “humble.”
When I try to employ humility in my life, I think about correlating it to the word “wisdom.” Socrates has a great story about wisdom where he is told to be the wisest man in the world by an oracle. In order to prove or disprove her statement, he travels around to other wise men and poses the same question. Their answers are uniform in that they believe themselves to be the wisest person in the world. Socrates then decides that he must be the wisest person, because he knows he is not wise.
In my mind, humility is similar to this. Once a person says they have, they have just lost it. Therefore, in essence, by writing this post, I am not humble, but that can be a philosophical discussion for another day. What we can continue on with is this idea that humility is illusory at times, and fragile at best. As a Christian, I also find humility to be similar to patience, in that if I as God for it in prayer, then I don’t actually get humility. Instead, I get circumstances that allow me to build my humility.
But we still need a definition for what actually IS humility. The Merriam-Webster dictionary lists humble as:
1: not proud or haughty : not arrogant or assertive
2: reflecting, expressing, or offered in a spirit of deference or submission
3a : ranking low in a hierarchy or scale : insignificant, unpretentious
b : not costly or luxurious
Easton’s Bible dictionary says that humility is a great paradox in Christianity because it is the avenue to glory.
What do we do with so little to discuss? There is the real question. As a Christian, I was often told that humility had everything to do with how human beings viewed themselves before God. That in relation to the greatness of the infinite, the finite should remember their place. Maybe here is where we should begin. Thomas Aquinas wrote in Suma Theologica that the only thing we can say about God with any certainty, is what God is not.
These ideas remind me that I have to temper my statements about what God wants, how God works, or what God is doing with the idea that I might be totally wrong. That is, if I’m going to remember my place in front of God as a part of the Creation, then I have to be willing to change as I come to understand what is the infinite magnitude of that which I worship. Yes, I do have Holy Scripture to guide me, and the Holy Spirit to counsel me, but I’m still human.
We can look at our history and see this. There were pastors on both sides of the debate on slavery and civil rights in America, and now we have them on both sides of the LGBT debate. I won’t say that one is following the Bible and the other is not, but I will say that we should be humble when we begin to declare that something is God’s way of looking at an issue. Maybe this way we can have a conversation and not just a shouting match.
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