Day 5 - A Humble Heart
Listen to The Podcast
A Humble Heart - Benjamin Bachman
Hey, friends. So, they gave me the topic of humility to write about. I guess I am humbled that they gave me this topic. After all, does a humble person write a post about being humble? I think not! Haha. Well, here we are, so bear with me.
Learning humility came in many forms for me growing up. When I was young, I had to learn humility. It wasn't just served on a plate of skills that I was given. I can remember many times when I spoke up boldly thinking I had something to offer in conversations, and then older individuals looked at me and told me that I didn't know what I was talking about.
I would also say "I can do it," and then it changed to "I can do it instead of you" Ultimately that has changed to, "let me know the best way I can serve you." I found that I needed to learn to listen and serve others before just pressing my thoughts and ideas on folks.
I had to learn that humility took everyday practice and execution. It is a posture of putting others ahead of yourself in ways that aren't natural for our sinful nature.
In Philippians 2:5-8 (MSG) Apostle Paul writes, "Think of yourselves the way Christ Jesus thought of himself. He had equal status with God but didn’t think so much of himself that he had to cling to the advantages of that status no matter what. Not at all. When the time came, he set aside the privileges of deity and took on the status of a slave, became human! Having become human, he stayed human. It was an incredibly humbling process. He didn’t claim special privileges. Instead, he lived a selfless, obedient life and then died a selfless, obedient death—and the worst kind of death at that—a crucifixion."
So to put it bluntly, even Jesus was not above walking in humility. He ultimately modeled this with His life. From the everyday practical things to the finality of His own life. Jesus was born as a man and died because of His love for us. In the same way may we learn to love others before ourselves.
Jordan Peterson says, "It is more difficult to rule yourself than it is to rule a city." What he so clearly understands is that we have reflect and truly learn what it means to be humble. We have to understand how to walk with others before we just bulldoze our intentions all over a situation.
So what does walking in humility look like?
Understand that you are a sinner. This should humble us.
Know that laying your life down requires intentionality, love, and sacrifice.
Give credit to the very one who made you.
Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others. ~ Philippians 2:3-4 (NIV)
Scripture Reading: Philippians 2
Spiritual Practice
Take a moment to think through three different moments in the next 24 hours where you can practice intentional humility:
It might be serving someone you typically don't.
It might be taking a couple of extra moments to really pay attention to what someone is saying and get curious about what they have to offer.
It might be allowing someone else to stand in the spotlight as you serve in the background.
Whatever it is… be like Nike and #justdoit.
