Step 18: Humility

“Friend, remember that corn and the fruit of the Spirit will stand high in the valleys.  The valley is the soul made humble among the mountains of labors and virtues. …Repentance lifts a man up.  Mourning knocks at heaven’s gate.  Holy humility opens it.”

--St. John Climacus

“Humble yourselves before the Lord and he will exalt you.”

--James 4:10

I once heard someone try to summarize the Old Testament in one sentence, “There is only one God and you are not him.”  I don’t know if that’s really a good summary of the Old Testament, but it’s certainly a good thing to remember.  Humility is the prerequisite for holiness.  It is the only soil in which God is able to grow godly people.  Humility comes with remembering who I am, who God is, and who I am in God.

First I remember that I am not perfect.  I make mistakes.  I sin.  When I confess my sins, God forgives them.  He even forgets them, but I don’t.  We shouldn’t beat ourselves up over them.  God has dealt with them, but it’s a healthy thing to remember that I am not the person that I want to be.  I need help. And I need to be humble enough to ask for it.  That’s when I remember who God is.

God wants to help me be the person I should be.  From the time he created the universe God has been bending over it like a parent teaching a toddler to walk, holding us up, coaxing us forward, encouraging us with outstretched arms to come to him.  Reading the prophets, Hosea for example, one gets a sense that God yearns for us intensely.  It’s almost embarrassing that the Lord of all creation loves us so much.  It’s definitely humbling.

God loves us so much that he became one of us so that we could become like him.  The purpose of the life, death, and resurrection of Christ was to raise us up to be with him where he is.  In Christ, I have a place in the household of God.  There is nothing I could do to earn that place.  God gives it to me freely, out of love.  And all I can do is accept it humbly and try to live up to the generosity that God has shown me and the grace that he has given to me.  When it comes to the capacity for love, there is only one God and I am not him.  Not even close.

Prayer:

O God, who are we that you should love us so much?  What have we done to merit the blessings you give so freely?  In humility we offer ourselves to you, recognizing the smallness of our offering and the greatness of your gift, through Christ our Lord.  Amen.

St. John Climacus, pray for us.