Humility: If I Ignore It, Maybe It Will Go Away

"Whoever wishes to become great among you shall be your servant; and whoever wishes to be first among you shall be slave of all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many." - Mark 10:43-45

I was reading about the discipline of humility and how this discipline helps us to be humble by dwelling on what Christ was willing to do for us. I cannot imagine leaving behind glorious heaven to come to earth for 30 plus years, becoming a servant, a sacrifice, a stand-in for sin. I become unhappy if I have to wait in line at Michael's or Walmart. I am put out if I have to make an extra trip out to pick up something forgotten. While I may enjoy sending a card to a friend or making bread for someone who has been sick, I balk at any real notion of service. Something that would require a significant sacrifice of time or effort terrifies me. And even on occasion when I muster the will to volunteer for something outside myself, though it seems to be a huge task for me it is really nothing compared to the self-less life and sacrificial death of Jesus.

The gap between Jesus and me is so large that it prohibits almost entirely any ability on my part to truly grasp what He did for me and what it may have meant for Him in terms of sacrifice. We had a dog named Zoe who when confronted with something she knew we did not want her to have, to eat, or to attack (like the cat, our dinner, or one of the hamsters), would turn her head and refuse to look at the forbidden fruit. You could hold the disgruntled kitty right up to her nose and she would forcefully turn her head as far away as she could and refuse to see the cat. It simply did not exist to her as long as we were watching. Who knows what or who she would have eaten if we were not present. I am like Zoe, I pretend things do not exist, not things that I'm not supposed to have but things that I financially cannot have or intellectually cannot grasp. I was able to "do" math up to the level of pre-calculus. I needed much help and encouragement from my husband Dean to get that far but I made it through. However, toward the end of my class in pre-calculus I caught a glimpse of what lay ahead. I can tell you that math beyond pre-calculus exceeds my intellectual ability and for the most part I pretend it doesn't exist. I don't like to think there is anything out there that I can't understand given enough time and a patient tutor but the fact is there are many things out there that are beyond me. For the most part I refuse to acknowledge them!

(pictures of one of the hamsters Zoe was not permitted to eat!)

I take the same approach to many things including extreme wealth. I am not likely to ever be extremely wealthy and so I don't spend time thinking about what it would be like to live that lifestyle. Why dwell on what I cannot have or do? In this case it would do me well to remember that compared to most people in the world I am rich beyond measure and even here where I live, in Lexus-Land I am rich in blessings and provision. The point is that I approach overcoming the extreme discrepancy between Christ and myself as something so impossible, so much like learning calculus or astrophysics or as improbable as living the lifestyle of the rich and famous that I do not dwell on it, I ignore it and miss the opportunity for change.

When I am forced during sermons or study to see the great sacrifice and fully realize the weight of all that Christ has done for me I do experience humility. But it doesn't last long. I return to my world with my false sense of control and my own importance. How then, to remember, how to fully realize, how to carry the knowledge of the humility of Christ on my behalf into my everyday life; that is my dilemma.

I think the key may be to incrementally meditate on those scriptures pertaining to the life of Christ, taking in small pieces of His life and letting them sink in little by little. I will never be like Christ on this earth but I am called to follow His example, not turn away from it because it is so far beyond what I can imagine in myself. By meditation on scripture, through the power of the Holy Spirit, with faith in Christ, giving thanks to God, I can "renew my mind" and move toward becoming the "new creature" I want to be. Perhaps like Zoe, I may still turn my head but instead of not looking at all, I can "see" with my peripheral vision the great love that Jesus has for me and then slowly "see" more and more in the safety of that love.

With regard to material excess or theoretical physics it's probably OK, perhaps beneficial to my self-esteem, to pretend they don't exist, but to ignore the overwhelming sacrifice of Christ is to deny what He has done for me. Grabbing hold of my running motto I must "Be strong, Be brave" and journey on to the point where I can look full on at the Cross.