Cultivate humility ! (1)

Wednesday August 18, 2021

Cultivate humility ! (1)

“A man's pride will lead him to humiliation, but he who is lowly in spirit will obtain glory.” Proverbs 29. 23

Pride is the root of all sins. Our sins take on very different clothes, but pride is behind each of them. Pride, in the end, is the most obvious expression of our natural rebellion before God and His will. Even when we pretend to act with humility, pride is never far away, like a persistent cough that we cannot get rid of. How then to grow in humility ?

1- If you are going to ask your pastor for advice, there is a good chance that he will encourage you to pray more. Why ? Because praying proves that we are not able to manage our lives on our own and that we need Him for every step we take here on earth. Accepting from His hands the blessings He wants to bestow upon us requires that we live in humility and recognize our dependence on Him. Naaman bitterly learned this when Elisha commanded him to go and bathe in the waters of the Jordan (2 Kings 5:10-12). He was looking for a spectacular response, commensurate with his pride and his position as a warlord. God wanted to humiliate him until he accepted His grace in its most ordinary form. Let us not miss the most innocuous marks of divine grace !

2- We have to look at ourselves in the right mirror. Erik Raymond explains that we usually assess our behavior based on what we think of ourselves, or what others think of us, or what we think of others to think of us. However, our opinion of ourselves is rarely correct, that of others fluctuates according to circumstances, and if we reflect on what others think of us, it is because we are already slaves to others. The good mirror is to find out what God thinks of us !

Source (His Word for Today)