Humility and Pride

Humility and Pride

For most of my life, I’ve believed that humility is a vital virtue. But not so fun when it’s my turn. Recently, our family had to move in with a family from our church. My husband, Jor was working on his own business for a couple years and neither funding nor a job was coming together. After getting counsel from our pastor and other Christian friends, we were encouraged to find someone to move in with.

When I started to face this fact, I spent hours crying. I didn’t want to lose our spacious home of six years. I felt ashamed by the apparent failure. I hated the fact that it showed that I didn’t “have it all together.” I feared others would say, “Well you should have done XY and Z or you wouldn’t have ended up in this situation.” But God showed me that this was pride.

I don’t see myself as a particularly prideful person. Usually, when I do something wrong, I admit it and apologize. I try to be honest and real with people. However, when it came down to moving out of our home, I didn’t want to tell people. I felt fine telling those really close to us. But when it came to others, I cringed.

I’ve been listening to this song called Alabaster Box by Julie Meyer (from Ihop). The song is referring to the story of a sinful woman in the bible who was so thankful for what Jesus had done for her, that she did a scandalous thing. She took a jar of very expensive perfume – probably her dowry – and broke it at Jesus’ feet. Some on-looking religious leaders judged her saying, “What a waste,” but she didn’t care. The lyrics, “All I have, and all I am…I give it all to you…I take my alabaster box and I break it open. Let the fragrance arise.” Her thankfulness was so strong that she scorned what others thought and showered her love and worship on Jesus. Her sacrifice rose as a fragrant offering. She gave up her future and in reckless abandon, gave it all to Jesus.

Jesus said, “Any of you who does not give up everything he has cannot be my disciple.” Oh. Right. I had bought into the worldly mindset that says you’ve arrived when you “have it all.” And here is Jesus saying, give it all. “Life does not consist in an abundance of possessions.” Very counter intuitive when you live in materialistic Silicon Valley. Proverbs 18:12 says, “Humility comes before honor,” not worldly success. How does humility come before honor? There is one stark example from scripture – Jesus’ humiliating death on criminal’s cross. Because of Jesus’ obedience, God gave him the name that is above all other names. Humility came before honor.

When God called Jor to start his business, I thought that He would bless us by allowing it to succeed. Instead, we crashed, financially. Did God let us down? Did we miss something? After the disappointment phase I came to the surrender phase. Could I be like the woman with the alabaster jar? Could I give up all I had, in love and adoration of Jesus, rejecting, “what others might think?”

Even though it hurt to lose our home, God was also blessing. The people who took us in had just remodeled their home so as to use their gift of hospitality. They invited us to become part of their family, since their own children were grown. Days after our move, I felt that God was giving me the Christian parents that I never had and grandparent for my kids. They’ve fed us, shopped for us, given us three bedrooms and met more needs than I could imagine.

I’m learning that following Jesus does not guarantee material success. He cares about spiritual progress, not upward mobility. He allows humbling circumstance into our lives, to test our hearts. Will we truly give up what we have to follow? God wants to bless us but not always in the way we want to be blessed. It is in humbling ourselves that we can find the treasures that can only by found at His feet.