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This entry is part 1 of 10 in the series humility

Shortly after writing yesterday's post, I read 1 Peter 3:8: “Finally, all of you, have unity of mind, sympathy, brotherly love, a tender heart, and a humble mind.” That pretty much covers it, right? If we have these five characteristics, we should not have many people problems. The last one–a humble mind–caught my attention.

Pride is the root of offense. It is only when we think something of ourselves that we can be offended. If my sense of self and my security come from and rest in God–that which is unchanging–then my sense of self and my security cannot be rocked or shaken by the behavior of others. As my pastor has said, “Dead people don’t get offended.” When I die to myself and find my life hidden in God, I’ve moved to another place where offense can’t touch me.

Let’s face it–well, let me face it–my mulling over of conversations, rehearsing the list of offenses, and so forth, comes from being far too self-focused and too caught up in what I perceive others to think of me. My fantasies of confrontation come from a belief that I’m worth defending and that I must prove to others that they can’t treat me that way. It’s a desire to put others in their places.

As I write this, my emotions keep interjecting, “Yes, but…” And that’s part of the problem too. When I allow my emotions free rein, I end up in bad places, because emotions can’t be trusted. The Spirit has been showing me (repeatedly!) over the past year that victory comes when I choose the leading of the Spirit over the leading of my emotions. Turning the other cheek is not a choice of the emotions because it doesn’t feel good. I am growing in my ability to move past my emotions and seek the Holy Spirit’s wisdom for my responses, but in the area of offense, growth is coming slowly.

Among other things, humility allows us to keep our emotions in their proper place. Emotions say, “You’re important–prove it by striking back!” But humility says, “You’re important to God and you don’t have to prove it. Let it go.” Humility keeps the focus on God, while emotions keep the focus on me. I should add here that I don’t believe emotions are a bad thing; emotions are a gift from God and are, of themselves, neutral. It’s what we do with emotions that becomes positive or negative. Jesus appears to have felt some negative emotions in Gethsemane, but He had the wisdom to bring His emotional response to the Father and say, “You show me what to do and I’ll do it, even if it’s not what I want.” That’s humility.

I wrote yesterday that I wanted a promise to hold on to because the psalmist tells us that God’s “promise preserves my life.” God offers quite a few promises to those who choose humility:

  • “For You save a humble people” (Psalm 18:27)
  • “He leads the humble in what is right, and teaches the humble His way.” (Psalm 25:9)
  • “The Lord lifts up the humble” (Psalm 147:6)
  • “He adorns the humble with salvation” (Psalm 149:4)
  • “to the humble He gives favor” (Proverbs 3:34)
  • “The reward for humility and fear of the Lord is riches and honor and life.” (Proverbs 22:4)
  • “Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 18:4)
  • “he who humbles himself will be exalted” (Luke 14:11)

An impressive list! And of course, Paul reminds us in Philippians that if we want to be like Christ, we must be humble. Clearly, I have every reason to seek humility.

I’ve always been a lover of fiction, and only in the last 3 or 4 years have I come to a place where I can not only teach poetry but also enjoy it. The majority of my students in literature surveys are put off by poetry (as I was, even in grad school), so I have had some hesitation in posting a poem here. Hopkins in 1888This summer, I’ve been teaching British and Irish Literature II (which covers the late 1700’s to the present), and I’ve been reacquainted with some poems and poets that I love. In particular I’m drawn to Gerard Manley Hopkins, a Jesuit in Victorian England who wrote so eloquently about his faith. A number of his poems speak to his struggles with doubt, but he has others that celebrate God and creation. “As kingfishers catch fire” has been on my mind since mid-June: when I read it one morning before class, it stunned me (more about why after the poem).

[Teaching aside: let me make a few suggestions to all of you who are not poetry readers. First, read it aloud. Poetry is in part about sound, and this is especially true of Hopkins. You miss much of the beauty of his work if you don’t hear it. Second, ignore the accent marks (Í) and line breaks and just read straight through as you would with prose, pausing and stopping with the punctuation; it’s a lot easier to get the sense of the poem that way.]

As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame;
As tumbled over rim and roundy wells
Stones ring; like each tucked string tells, each hung bell’s
Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name;
Each mortal thing does one thing and the same:
Deals out that being indoors each one dwells;
Selves–goes itself; myself it speaks and spells,
Crying What I do is me: for that I came.

Í say more: the just man justices;
Keeps gráce: thát keeps all his goings graces;
Acts in God’s eye what in God’s eye he is–
Chríst. For Christ plays in ten thousand places,
Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his
To the Father through the features of men’s faces.

kingfisherI have to say, I’m still left rather breathless each time I read it. Perhaps it’s because I’ve fumbled for so long to know who I am and what I’m all about; only in the last 6 or 7 years have I truly come to know myself. As I’ve understood that God created me to do not just something but certain things, that I was created for a particular purpose, I have come to see that I don’t just teach for a living, I am a teacher. I don’t just like to write, I am a writer. “What I do is me: for that I came.”

It’s all well and good to know your purpose. Hopkins take this one step further, though. He says that as the “just man justices” and the writer writes, he “Acts in God’s eye what in God’s eye he is–Christ.” When I am truly me, being myself (and doing what I was made to do), I am Christ, giving pleasure to the Father. It’s good to be reminded that I was made for a purpose and that who I am makes my Creator happy.

Note: for those of you, like me, unfamiliar with the kingfisher, this is what he looks like; you can learn more here.

we regard no one…

July 16, 2006

Over at kendallball.net, Greg has taken John Donne’s "No man is an island" concept and pushed the issue of self– and group definition to consider how the Christian sees himself in relation to the rest of humanity:

In Jesus we are called to be new creations, and perhaps part of this new creation is the cultivation (through certain practices) of the idea that I am a part of the continent of humanity… Maybe then we will shift our focus from ourselves and become builders of peace, seekers of justice, and lovers of all mankind. Those sorts of things just don’t seem possible as long as we’re deriving our self-identity from a source other than our status as children of God and followers of Christ.

I think the Apostle Paul’s teaching about new creation is worth considering here…

Read the full article →

just a …

June 21, 2006

Names of Jesus posterYesterday, feeling a little flat, I thought I’d find inspiration in a name of Jesus. I have a “Names of Jesus” poster hanging in my office on campus, and occasionally I’ll take one of the names, look at the scripture reference, get the context, and mull it over. I’ve worked my way through about a third, so the next in the list was “Carpenter.”

My first thought was: who put that on the list? Why is carpenter there with Morning Star, Bread of Life, and King of kings? But I looked at the reference anyway…

Read the full article →
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