Journeying Toward Humility

Last weekend, I “retreated” with 60 other guys from my church. And while the atmosphere was much deeper and more relational than previous years, I still felt the testosteronish discomfort in the room about opening up TOO much. But Gary, our fearless leader pressed in to the discomfort by asking the guys to walk around and give words of blessing and encouragement to each other. Suddenly everybody was like....

Nevertheless, guys started mingling and after a number of kind words were exchanged, an older guy who I happen to have a lot of respect for approached me. Very sincerely he said to me, “You’re good at so many different things. God has gifted you in so many ways. It would be easy to start thinking too highly of yourself. But if you can stay humble, I think God is going to accomplish great things through you.”

I think he’s right... and it got me thinking about pride and humility, a familiar refrain in my story. One blogger said if you talk a lot about humility, you probably haven’t achieved it. I suppose for me, that’s true. I’ve walked a life-long journey with spiritual pride. I’ve seen its consequences and I hate it. I’ve also seen that the flipside of pride is self-loathing and judgment. I hate that too. But I doubt I’ve achieved humility.

I’m going to Ghana next week. I get to do some really cool things with some really cool people. I get to travel out into the Fulani villages, host a couple hundred Fulani for a 1-day conference, hang out with some of the brightest Christian leaders around. Part of me says, “this is awesome! If other people could do things my way, their ministries would be awesome too!” Of course it’s a silly thought. I had very little to do with the success of the Ghana ministry. In a sense I’m just along for the ride. God made it happen and Jonah is the guy on the ground busting his back making friends with the Fulani. I’m just the guy on the other crackly end of the telephone saying, “Yay!”

And in fact, I had this dream last weekend that I was in Ghana trying to communicate something about God’s love to the Fulani and they started arguing with me, scoffing at me. As things got increasing hostile, it became clear that I was failing in so many ways. I woke up wondering how I would feel if that actually happened, if I crashed and burned with the Fulani. Not good I suppose. But is that ultimately in my control? Am I ultimately a self-made man, bearing the full weight of both success and failure? I hope not! Because if that’s not the case, there’s room for both humility and joy. There’s room for conviction, even guilt, self-correction, celebration, momentum, and courage. But there’s no room for shame or pride. Because the ultimate glory and responsibility goes to God and I just get to say, “yay!”

For me, the real story with humility is a story of God’s kindness and love. Because the pendulum would keep swinging back and forth between self-loathing and pride (with loads of judgment for myself and others) unless something stepped in to knock the pendulum off its track. For me, it usually comes in the form of a humbling/humiliating experience right on the tail end of a major success.

Or, when I have my head screwed on straight, I can sometimes take a deep breath and back away from that self-congratulatory smugness. And sometimes when I pray I feel like God actually gives me the choice: Deflate that ego, or I’ll do it for you. And that’s really kind of Him because it says that God cares enough about me to not let me get away with pride (and all the shame and judgment that comes with it)... at least not for very long.

I’m trying to adjust my beliefs. I’m trying to begin to view success as a really good but really dangerous thing.... and failure as a potentially beautiful, redemptive thing; So that whatever happens, I grow, and Jesus grows inside me. For now, I’m humming the words of a song I wrote one night 10 years ago on a bridge in Ecuador (long story). It has become an anchoring prayer for me whenever I need some humbling. Here it is....