On Humility:

Jesus rightly identified love for God and people as owning first place among all the commandments of God. These two irreducibly summarize everything else God desires of us. All the other commandments and exhortations of Scripture simply describe for us what it means to to love God and to love people.

Deeply embedded in the command to love is one extraordinary virtue without which love is not possible. Love is essentially other-centered. It is fulfilled in service: service to God and others. It seeks the best for others and so puts others sacrificially before the self. This is the kind of love God has for us; the love Jesus showed us when he went to the cross to provide pardon and reconciliation for alienated rebels like us.

The virtue which makes that kind of love possible is humility. Tim Keller has observed that humility is not thinking less of ourselves, but thinking of ourselves less. The difference is subtle but significant. Humility is not some form of self deprecation. It doesn’t focus on the self much at all. But like love, humility makes others more.

A quick survey of the New Testament underscores just how big a deal this is:

• “Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly [humble] in heart, and you will find rest for your souls” (Matthew 11:29 ESV).
• “For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted” (Luke 14:11 ESV).
• “Live in harmony with one another. Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly. Never be wise in your own sight” (Romans 12:16 ESV).
• “Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves” (Philippians 2:3 ESV).
• “Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness [gentleness], and patience…” (Colossians 3:12 ESV).
• “Likewise, you who are younger, be subject to the elders. Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another, for ‘God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble’” (1 Peter 5:5 ESV).
• “But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, ‘God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble’ Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you” (James 4:6-10 ESV).

Humility has emerged in my own spiritual journey as a deeply longed-for soul imperative. I have been prodded to this journey largely by my own need for grace. As Peter and James both remind us, “God resists the proud [ranges himself in battle against] but gives grace [only] to the humble.” (They are quoting from the Septuagint translation of Proverbs 3:34.)

Since I constantly stand in need of grace it became indispensable to me that I figure out what true humility is and how to go about shaping it in my heart.

A second push came from God locking my attention onto Colossians 3:12 where we are exhorted to put on—clothe ourselves—with “compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience.” As I meditated on this passage, humility emerged as the central virtue, the hub around which the others revolved. Only humility could make me kind and gentle. And kindness would produce compassion; gentleness would produce patience.

It continues to be a journey of grace but one in which God is faithfully working out what he started in me some fifty-three years ago.

This week I stumbled across something which I believe may well help me take further on this pilgrimage. Mark Galli is the retiring Editor in Chief for Christianity Today Magazine. I follow his blog (The Galli Report) not because I agree with everything he writes, but because he so often speaks about issues that resonate in my own soul.

Writing about the recent storm caused by his stand on a moral issue, he added “The guiding light for me in any controversy I find myself in is the Litany of Humility. I pray it regularly precisely because I fall so short of its ideals.”

Intrigued, I followed his link to this document:

A Litany of Humility

“Jesus! Meek and humble of heart, Hear me.
From the desire of being esteemed, Deliver me, Jesus.
From the desire of being loved, Deliver me, Jesus.
From the desire of being extolled, Deliver me, Jesus.
From the desire of being honored, Deliver me, Jesus.
From the desire of being praised, Deliver me, Jesus.
From the desire of being preferred to others, Deliver me, Jesus.
From the desire of being consulted, Deliver me, Jesus.
From the desire of being approved, Deliver me, Jesus.
From the fear of being humiliated, Deliver me, Jesus.
From the fear of being despised, Deliver me, Jesus.
From the fear of suffering rebukes, Deliver me, Jesus.
From the fear of being calumniated, Deliver me, Jesus.
From the fear of being forgotten, Deliver me, Jesus.
From the fear of being ridiculed, Deliver me, Jesus.
From the fear of being wronged, Deliver me, Jesus.
From the fear of being suspected, Deliver me, Jesus.
That others may be loved more than I, Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.
That others may be esteemed more than I, Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.
That, in the opinion of the world, others may increase and I may decrease, Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.
That others may be chosen and I set aside, Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.
That others may be praised and I unnoticed, Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.
That others may be preferred to me in everything, Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.
That others may become holier than I, provided that I may become as holy as I should, Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it. Amen.”
– Attributed to Rafael Cardinal Merry Del Val, by Charles Belmonten (Handbook of Prayers, Studium Theologiae Foundation, Manila, 1986).

Baptists are late discovering the riches of our more liturgical brothers and sisters. I find this litany of prayer helpful. It expresses the heart of one who has thought deeply about what it means to be so grounded in God’s love that one desires to “think of one’s self less.” So for a time, at least, I’m incorporating this into my prayers. It is a good reminder of the many still unhumbled parts of my own sinful self that need to bow before my King.