Just as God is love and the only source of love, our God is also the one perfect source of humility. We must learn and receive humility from the Creator of the universe, the all-sovereign, all-powerful, all-knowing, eternal and completely humble One. For several months I have been reading and meditating on Andrew Murray’s short book entitled, Humility. In his book, he states that we cannot become humble by reading his book nor can we become humble by deciding to be humble on our own. We must seek and receive humility from God. Jesus is our example of perfect humility while living as God in the flesh. Jesus, our creator, humbled Himself and became a bondservant to the Father, obeying the Father to the point of dying for us. It was for this reason the Father also exalted the name of Jesus above every other name. Philippians 2:3-11
Biblical humility is death to self so that we can be full of God as Jesus was. If we only deny ourselves and do not simultaneously fill ourselves by seeking to know and love God with all our heart, we will degenerate into hollow, powerless shells. One of the primary ways the Lord is bringing His humility to me has been through the revelation of my strong need to have order in my life and to be productive. In many ways, order and being productive are good and have benefitted me, our family and our ministry. However, when life events and contrary situations prevented me from accomplishing what I had hoped for, my response has typically been justified frustration and impatience. The result being, I lose my peace with God, with people and myself. Recently, to a much larger degree, I have been able to “go with the flow” when things don’t go as I had planned. Because of this, the peace of God is much more constant, and my connection with God and others is preserved. The peace of God is priceless. Frustration and impatience are tormentors.
Interestingly, while seeking humility from God, the positive results just seemed to appear in my life with minimal effort compared to when I would work to be patient in my own strength. When I began desiring the virtue of humility, I did not set out to be more patient and tolerant when my plans were disrupted. That is just what the Lord chose to do in me. I was simply pursuing Him and His humility, and the result came from my commitment to seek and pursue the humility of God, not from my own personal efforts to be humble.
Although I have seen a definite increase of humility in this area of my life, I have not yet “obtained” humility. I have only experienced the benefit of consistently pursuing, desiring and praying for it. That is exactly what I must do in order to maintain and continue to grow in the humility of Jesus.
I invite you to pray over and over with me, the prayer Andrew Murray challenged me with; and as you pray, meditate on the vast implications of this prayer.
Lord, I pray that I would fully know of Your great goodness, and that You would remove from me, every form, kind and degree of pride.
Written by: Barry Byrne