Chapter 30. Beyond Hollow Humility. Do not let your peace depend upon the word of men, for whether they judge well or ill of you, you are not therefore any other man than who you are. Thomas à Kempis. We must unlearn what the spirit of the world has taught us, before we can be governed by the spirit of humility. William Law.
Fifteenth-century spiritual writer Thomas à Kempis describes a truly humble Christian as "one who is so contented and comforted by God that he would just as willingly be the least among others as most other people desire to be the greatest." The humble Christian is content and at peace when he is in the lowest place as when he is in the highest one. He is just as willing to be viewed as small and of no account by others as he is to be viewed as more honorable and greater than everyone else.
That probably sounds unrealistic. How could anyone honestly be as content to be viewed as of no account by others as he would to be viewed by others with great respect? The answer lies in the word "others." The person living the kingdom life cares enormously what God thinks of him. However, he knows that what others think of him matters little. Peggy Prodigy. Peggy Prodigy is an artist studying painting at a famous art institute. Her final grade each semester depends totally on how her professor, Dr.
Deborah Du Bois, judges the merits of her paintings. On various open house weekends, the institute invites the students' parents to come and view the students' paintings and sculptures. When the parents review the artwork, they nearly always talk among themselves about which works they think are outstanding and which are inferior. Since Peggy works as an attendant at these open houses, she usually overhears such comments. Some really like her paintings, and others strongly dislike them.
Do their comments affect her? Not in the least. Peggy knows that her grades depend entirely on the assessments made by Dr. Du Bois. She also knows that what parents think is good art is often the very opposite of what Dr. Du Bois judges to be good art. So she feels no different when she overhears them praising her paintings than when she overhears them criticizing them. It's the same way in the kingdom life.
Such Christians know that what other people think of them often has little in common with what God thinks of them. Francis of Assisi spoke wisely when he commented, "Blessed is the servant who esteems himself no better when he is praised and exalted by people than when he is considered worthless, simple, and despicable; for what a man is before God, that he is and nothing more." Why True Humility Is Rare. Why is true humility so hard to find?
Because it goes against everything we are bombarded with from the day we are born. The world cherishes power, riches, fame, prestige, and beauty. From the time most of us were toddlers, our parents encouraged us to excel others. Schools use pride and competition to motivate students to surpass others in both academics and athletics. They hold elections for students to vote for who is the most popular. Some schools issue bumper stickers to the parents of honor students so those parents can brag about their children.
From primary school through college, we are encouraged to pursue careers that will give us prestige, wealth, and power over others. Schools and colleges also spur us to have collective pride: pride in our school, pride in our state, and pride in our country. We're supposed to think that our school is the best in the state or the nation. Why? Because we go there. Our country is the best country on earth. Why? Because we live in it. If we lived in another country, we would be told that country is the best on earth.
So from the time we are toddlers, we have been trained to foster pride in ourselves and in everything connected to us. No wonder humility is hard to cultivate. We've been programmed for pride, not humility. William Law aptly described this situation. The first state of mind we try to awaken in children is pride, which is as dangerous a passion as that of lust. We stir children up to vain thoughts of themselves, and we do everything we can to puff up their minds.
We stir our youth to action by using strife and ambition. We motivate them with glory, envy, and a desire for distinction, so that they may excel others and shine in the eyes of the world. We encourage them to have honors in their eye, to scorn to be outdone by others, to accept no rival, to thirst after every instance of applause, and to be content with nothing but the highest distinctions. So it is little wonder that by the time we reach adulthood, we are glutted with pride.
Yet Christians imagine that because years ago they said a prayer in which they acknowledged that they were sinners and needed Christ for salvation, that means they have somehow conquered pride. In reality, all that has usually happened is that they've embraced a theological position. Their hearts are as full of pride as ever. The Most Humble Man Who Ever Lived. There has been only one perfect example of humility here on earth: Jesus. He himself said, "I am meek and lowly in heart." Matthew 11:29.
To have been above all creation but then lower himself to become part of that creation is unfathomable. But it didn't stop there. He lowered himself even more when he washed the feet of his disciples, a job normally given to the lowest of slaves. But even that pales in comparison to his allowing those very humans he had created to mock him, hit him, spit on him, scourge him, and then put him to death as a criminal in one of the cruelest ways possible.
Although deserving of endless praise and glory, Jesus used every opportunity to draw glory away from himself and redirect it toward his Father. He told the unbelieving Jews, "When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am he and that I do nothing of myself. But as my Father taught me, I speak these things: If God were your Father, you would love me, for I proceeded forth and came from God, nor have I come of myself, but he sent me." John 8:28 and verse 42.
On another occasion, he told the crowd, "I have not spoken on my own authority, but the Father who sent me gave me a command: what I should say and what I should speak. And I know that his command is everlasting life. Therefore, whatever I speak, just as the Father has told me, so I speak." John 12:49-50. Jesus behaved exactly opposite to how fallen men behave. He went out of his way to minimize his own authority and to call attention to his Father.
In contrast, our tendency is to magnify ourselves and downplay others. When we do give others credit, it's often out of a false skin-deep modesty. Like Greg Glorious, we publicly say modest things because that makes people admire us even more. But there was no false modesty in Jesus. He was not jealous of his Father's authority and greatness. Rather, he was jealous for his Father's authority and greatness. It pained Jesus to think that he might somehow draw glory away from his Father.
So he went out of his way to direct glory away from himself. One of the most poignant examples is his encounter with the rich young ruler who asked him about eternal life. Now, a certain ruler asked him, saying, "Good teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?" So Jesus said to him, "Why do you call me good? No one is good but one, that is, God." Luke 18:18-19. Modern commentators are baffled by this incident. Why would Jesus gently rebuke this young man for calling him good?
Why would he give this man the impression that he shouldn't be called good? This makes no sense to our fallen flesh. So we dream up explanations that fit our own egos. We say things such as, "No doubt Jesus paused here, waiting for the young man to acknowledge his divinity." After all, if any of us were divine, we would surely want to call attention to the fact. If we were truly good, most of us would certainly let everyone know it. So we project our pride onto Jesus.
Obviously, Jesus is good in every sense of the word. So why did he say what he did? As George MacDonald explains, "He did not care to hear himself called good. It was not of consequence to him. He was there to let men see the goodness of the Father in whom he glorified." When Jesus heard the word good, his thoughts immediately rose to the Father.
Jesus is perfectly good, but because his goodness flows from that of the Father, he wanted his Father to receive all the glory, even if it meant directing glory away from himself. Perfect humility. Jesus was not only the perfectly humble man, he was also the perfectly forgiving man. Because one of the qualities that flows from genuine humility is forgiveness.