Humility
“Dropping my sword and walking into the next room to apologize felt like a kind of dying. It smarted.” (85) This is the confession of Tish Harrison Warren in her chapter titled “Fighting with my Husband”. Can you relate to that feeling in your life? Do you too clench your “sword” tightly when it comes to disagreements or hate the idea of surrendering to the possibility that maybe, just by chance, and just this once, you weren’t entirely completely in the right?
Why is it so hard for us to admit when we’re wrong? Why do the words “I’m sorry” come off our tongue with such difficulty? Sometimes we would rather fight even when we know we’re wrong because we just don’t want to set down our pride and confess the error of our ways. We cling so tightly to our opinion or perception or declaration, and it really can feel like unwillingly waving a white flag to surrender our unallienable right to be… well, right.
I John 1:8-9 lays it out for us: “ If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.” And yet it does not come easily to us. We like to feel that we have a claim on the truth and it’s comforting to delude ourselves into thinking that we are infallible. Humble pie is nobody’s favorite dinner option.
Proverbs 22:4 proclaims, “The reward for humility and fear of the Lord is riches and honor and life.” You know who wrote Proverbs, right? This book of the Bible was written by a man who was pretty much the smartest person ever to have lived on this planet… check out the main parts of how we know this found in I Kings chapter 3:
We’ll begin with verse 5: “At Gibeon the Lord appeared to Solomon during the night in a dream, and God said, “Ask for whatever you want me to give you.”
Solomon decides to ask for this in verse 9, “So give your servant a discerning heart to govern your people and to distinguish between right and wrong.”
I love God’s response in verses 10-13: “The Lord was pleased that Solomon had asked for this. So God said to him, “Since you have asked for this and not for long life or wealth for yourself, nor have asked for the death of your enemies but for discernment in administering justice, I will do what you have asked. I will give you a wise and discerning heart, so that there will never have been anyone like you, nor will there ever be. Moreover, I will give you what you have not asked for—both wealth and honor—so that in your lifetime you will have no equal among kings.”
Maybe I need to start changing my appetite and cravings a bit and start hungering for humility. It comes with an awful lot of rewards! Perhaps remembering this interaction between Solomon and God will make it easier for me to surrender my staunch position that I need to feel like I won the battle and was right next time.
__________________________________________________
May I too bow my head and seek to please God with the choices that I make and the things that I request from Him when He asks me what I want.
__________________________________________________
Perhaps I no longer lean toward, “I want to be right” but instead embrace, “I want to be humble”. If enough people join us in putting down their weapons, think how peace could abound in this culture of heads banging against each other!
