Here’s What Humility Looks Like… (Daily Refresh, 9-08)

When you think of humility, what comes to mind? 

In our world, humility is often seen as a self-degrading concept that reveals our insecurities and keeps us from becoming our best selves. 

But true humility never leads to insecurity, because insecurity is a form of pride. Pride either puffs us up or tears us down. Pride is self-sufficient, but also self-destructive. If we’re doing great, pride makes our confidence soar. But if we’re going through a rough season, pride makes us sensitive to our failures. Pride links our worth to our accomplishments, and it prevents us from seeing who we truly are. 

Pride makes us think that if we try hard enough, we can become good enough. Humility helps us realize that we are not enough—but God is enough for us. 

Humility will often ask us to risk something. It might mean laying down our social standing, our reputation, our financial security, our sense of authority, or our expertise. 

But surrendering our self-sufficiency lets us embrace God’s authority. And our God did miracles through Moses, established David as king of Israel, worked through Isaiah in the midst of chaos, publicly honored Mary, abundantly provided for Peter, and glorified Jesus by raising Him from the dead. 

When we surrender ourselves to God, we allow Him to be glorified through us. Humility might cost us something—but it leads to abundant life. 

So today, how can you humble yourself before God? Take a few moments and process what you need to lay down in order to draw closer to God within the upcoming weeks.

My Thoughts

Whenever I think that I am doing fairly well spiritually, God puts a lesson like this one in my path so that I can see that I am not “all that.” There are so many points in this post, especially the sentence about pride linking our worth to our accomplishments. That spoke to me because I have always been one who wanted to be the best at whatever I am doing, not for the sake of completion because I am really competing with myself. But that is pride and I confess that now and pray that I will do better. I was never good enough for my mom to approve of me. Straight A’s. That was good, but I wasn’t taking all honors classes. On the Dean’s List in college. That was good, but I wasn’t on the President’s List for even higher grades. You get the idea. Now I look back and I know that no one has cared what my GPA was in high school or college…they just wanted to know that I was efficient and suited for the job they wanted me to do. I think that is how God sees me too. He doesn’t care about my accomplishments but about my being equipped to do the work He is calling me to do. Everything we do should be to glorify God, not to pat ourselves on the back or shine a spotlight on our own abilities. We have no abilities without God’s giving them to us, so He should always get the glory for all we do and for all we are. That is the prayer for myself today and for any of my readers who have been struggling with pride but didn’t really recognize it.