The notion that God intends our lives to be great is enthralling to me, especially in light of the fact that wherever I turn in the Scriptures, He seems to be telling us to be humble.  Well, wait just a minute….  How exactly are we supposed to be great and humble?  The key, I believe, is in our misunderstanding of both greatness and humility.

I began to speak of humility the other day, and I want to continue in that vein today (next time we’ll talk about greatness).  Most of us think humility is a sort of self-flagellation, as if we were to walk through life muttering, “Unworthy, unworthy,” for all to hear.  As if we were to spend our days and nights recounting the many and various ways in which we have proven ourselves to be the dregs of humanity.  Well, however depraved and debauched we may be, to indulge such thoughts 24/7 is not only unhealthy to our spiritual well-being, it’s downright sinful.

I can hear some of you already: “But aren’t we supposed to confess our sins?  Didn’t the apostle Paul himself say he was the chiefest of sinners?  Have I even begun to approach maturity until I, too, can say the same?”  By all means confess your sins, and confess them as specifically and directly as you can.  But knowing your sins, and even naming your sins, is not repentance.  Are you willing to let them go?  Are you willing to turn from them into a new course, a new path?  If so, then turn, friend, and receive the forgiveness that God in Christ holds out to you—forgiveness that opens the way for you to a new life, brimming over with love, joy and contentment that were completely and entirely unknown to you while you were wallowing in the mud of your own filth.

In Psalm 40:2-3, David says he’s been there too, but that God will do for those who trust Him what He also did for David when he cried out from the slimy places of his own life:

He drew me up from the desolate pit,
out of the miry bog,
and set my feet upon a rock,
making my steps secure.
He put a new song in my mouth,
a song of praise to our God.
Many will see and fear,
and put their trust in the Lord.

Yes, you’re a sinful person, but that’s not the man or woman God intends you to be.

The bottom line is this:  recognizing your sinfulness is not humility, however appropriate it is for us to recognize and turn from it.

Humility is simply recognizing the truth of who we are—and who we are not.  We are not condemned to live in despair and defeat.  You are not condemned to such a life.  Yes, we are created beings, shaped from the dust of the earth.  Apart from the breath of God in us, that’s all we would ever be.  We live and move and have our being solely because of His life, His breath, in us at this very moment.

His breath gives life to every soul who walks, or ever has walked, on the face of the earth. His breath gives you life whether you know Him or not.  But when you do come to know Him, when you invite Him in to help you, to save you, to lift you “out of the miry bog,” He then begins a new work in you; indeed, He makes you entirely new!  And you can live your life from then on with not only His breath in you, but the very Spirit of His son, Jesus, alive in you, so that “you are no longer your own, but have been bought with a price” (I Cor. 6:19-20), so that “you are a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!” (2 Cor. 5:17).

Our sinfulness ought to make us humble, not because sinfulness is humility, but because our sinfulness reminds us of our humility. It reminds us that we are dust; that we are created by Another, not ourselves; that we are His; that we are broken and wounded; that we are not the men and women He intends us to be.  Living out of that place moment by moment, day by day, year by year, that’s true humility!  Depending on Him for all we need to transcend that old life, not looking to our own efforts or our own lofty, misguided assessments of our own potential (after all, that’s what got us into trouble in the first place!), that’s humility.  Humility is having our origins in the earth, but our destiny in the heavens.  And that destiny will be our theme for next time!

I’d love to hear you thoughts!  Please feel free to click on the title above, scroll down, and leave a comment.