Good Like a Medicine

Lately God is testing and stretching me, causing me to long for more humility. I am learning more about this through my failures and trials, which is making me study it more. It is a marvelous wonder how God does not leave His children but is always revealing more of Himself to them. I think it is wonderful that I can say, “I am growing! Thank you, God! I am not where I was yesterday.” I am excited for heaven because there we have the hope of seeing more and more of God’s glory and our sight never being clouded by selfishness and pride.

Humility of Mind

The profound concept for me to grasp is this: understanding my rightful place before my Creator and Lord takes place within my mind. The realization that life’s meaning, success, and my joy come from outside of myself is a truly mind-altering epiphany. Suddenly my affections and attention are turned elsewhere and up to the Designer of my faith. This holy fear is the beginning of wisdom, and God promises to give it to me over and over as I beg for more humility.

Humility silences God’s competitors.

I am camping out today in chapter six of John Piper’s book Future Grace in which he discusses “Faith in Future Grace vs. Pride.” I love how Dr. Piper communicates the strength of rightfully placed humility here. Before he does this, however, he mentions the great competitors of God: “wisdom, might, and riches,” which “[tempt] us to take satisfaction in ourselves — our intelligence, our strength, our material resources. Each one lures us away from trusting God as the superior satisfaction above them all” (88). Yes, these battles that occur in my heart are raging in these very areas. Reading this chapter turns on a lightbulb within me and helps me to understand that the real blade that stabs my heart begins in my mind. It is when I drift off into the thought patterns of self-righteousness that my heart is wounded and weakened against the sins of pride, anger, bitterness, and lust for unholy affections. Prideful behavior doesn’t “just happen.” It begins in the mind.

The Poison of Intelligence and Dislocated Humility

It is often the most intelligent people that boastfully reject God and His rule in their lives. For that reason many Christians equate intelligence with pride. I can certainly say I have been one of these Christians and seen my folly in making these assumptions.

I sometimes wrongly perceive humility as doubtfulness, which is silly because the very cause of true humility is the assurance in the sovereignty of God. Piper reminds Christians that God is not in favor of ignorance and irrationality. We are to be thinking Christians, using our maturing minds to worship God and long after His truth. It is not wrong to have “intellectual conviction.” According to G.K.Chesterton,

What we suffer from…is humility in the wrong place. Modesty has moved from the organ of ambition. Modesty has settled upon the organ of conviction; where it was never meant to be. A man was meant to be doubtful about himself, but undoubting about the truth; this has been exactly reversed. Nowadays the part of a man that a man does assert is exactly the part he ought not to assert - himself. The part he doubts is exactly the part he ought not to doubt - the Divine Reason” (Orthodoxy pg. 31).

Yes, this is the precise point at which I find myself losing battles all the time! I forget that my confidence should be in the truth, not myself. I long for more of Christlikeness in my mind, and the joyful heart and humble behavior will follow in dutiful step.

So it is With Wisdom

This humility of mind which recognizes every breath and gift coming down from God resounds through the whole Christian’s being. This fear of the Lord in humility is truly the beginning of wisdom. The almost laughable thing about it for me is I feel like I’m a kicker. Every day I’m dropping back five more yards, and the goal seems unreachable. I know, though, that gradually I am learning the most important lesson of humility that God desires for all of His children.

If you are like me, you may have a point in which you wonder what the ultimate point of God’s love is and why our humility towards God should be the most desired goal for us. If I’m going to seek humility more than any virtue, I want to know why I should (notice the pride there)! Doesn’t God love people? Isn’t telling us to love Him more than anything kind of selfish or egocentric of God? I think this response is a good place to start with questions like those.

To go back to my slow process of learning, what helps is realizing that humility wins in my heart when my mind is set in its proper place. I can choose to set my mind on God or something else. I can decide what kind of thoughts about God I am going to foster in my mind. I can put God’s Word into my mind from the get go each day, or I can let my own natural thoughts take root. I can look at others in light of the grace God extends to me, or I can expect something impossible in my arrogance. I know what happens with the latter because I have been there too much lately. Lord, God, please give me humility of mind!

Every time we look at the cross Christ seems to be saying to us, “I am here because of you. It is your sin I am bearing, your curse I am suffering, your debt I am paying, your death I am dying.” Nothing in history or in the universe cuts us down to size like the cross. All of us have inflated views of ourselves, especially in self-righteousness, until we have visited a place called Calvary. It is there, at the foot of the cross that we shrink to our true size. (John Stott, Galatians, pg 167)