Humility: The greatest virtue of all humanity

Andrew murry, a South African writer, in one of his classic works had this to write about humility: ‘‘Humility is ….the first duty and the highest value of the creature, and the root of every virtue….The lack of humility is the sufficient explanation of every defect and failure’’. In basic terms, humility can be viewed as a state of being consistently humble irrespective of a person’s status across all faces of life, for instance wealth, wisdom, power, or any other human accomplishment that might tempt an individual into self glorification Humility can be expressed in a multifaceted fashion throughout life, for instance in the social context, leadership, family or any other form of human interaction. However its relevance is much amplified and felt in the spiritual circles, certainly because that’s where humility has its roots hence making profound meaning. Man’s natural inclination across all realms of life is not towards humility, but rather towards pride, self sufficiency and self self exaultation.How ever proverbs 6; 3 advise us to swallow our pride and in 8; 13, scripture reveal God’s irrevocable hatred for pride and arrogance. A proud man is not just a cocky, arrogant braggart who walks around with his head thrown back and thumbs under his arm pits; he may as easily a shy, nice ‘‘religious man’ who is living a self sufficient life independent of others and God. Not knowing God’s role in our lives and not continually recognizing our need to depend upon is the beginning of losing the super virtue, so priceless. What we should remind our selves is that we did not pay any price neither did we contribute even a micro-inch for being humans. Since we did, we don’t know any thing about us, man kind should refrain from showing partiality between God’s creations basing on naive and feeble standards of physical and mental make up plus other UN couth yard sticks people use. This taints God’s image from us and it’s a display of sheer blasphemy since it’s an act of judging God’s work and questioning his intelligence. It can be expressed as ‘‘naivety in its extravagant form’’ The bottom line of having humility is remaining humble regardless of vast achievements of wealth, power and authority, wisdom and other lofty human positions a person can have. Charles spun Geon, the famous London pastor of the ninetieth century, in his own words provides a good example of a person with humility; ‘‘When I became pastor in London, my success appalled, and the thought of the carrier which it seemed to open up, so far from elating me, it cast me into the lowest depth…..who was I to lead so great a multitude’’ There is a cancer that has eaten up today’s leaders across all spheres, in that instead of serving the people, they seek to be served, and you find apathetic situation of people suffering when their leaders are enjoying untold privileges and honors. Deficiency of humility condition in that it breads arrogance, pride and greed, which leads to self glorification and since the scripture says pride goes before destruction, a fatal destruction becomes the aftermath. A modern day pararrel to this arrogance was the ruthless dictator of Romania, Nikolai Ceausescu. After years of cruelly persecuting Christians and killing all potential threats to his power, ceausecu ordered the National opera to produce a song in his honor. He wanted this song to be sang on his 72nd birthday on January 26, 1990. But on December 25, 1989, he and his wife were executed. lthough his overthrow was part of the anti-communism revolution that swept through Eastern Europe, many Christians saw his down fall as an act of God. One Romanian, peter Dugulescu, said that it was ‘‘because he took the glory of God’’. Humility is a character quality we should seek after, by this we shall be following the example of our lord Jesus Christ, the most humble person that ever lived. For he was God but left his lofty throne and came down to reach out to sin full man .For he said ‘come and learn from me, am gentle and humble in heart’’. Learning humility is a life long lesson but the following are some of the things we can do to cultivate greater humility in our selves. We tend to go to one of the two extremes, either we think too highly of ourselves, or we think too lowly. If Satan cannot puff us up with pride, he will attempt to make us feel like worthless, no good beings. Another thing we should do to have humility into ourselves is speaking little about our selves and quitting comparing ourselves with others. When we compare our selves to others ,one or two things usually happens; we become proud because we think we are better or we become depressed ,because we think we do not measure up. Pride by its very nature is competitive. The Greek word for pride means a man who shows himself above others. Pride is not thinking we are smart, capable or good looking; pride is thinking that we are smarter than others, more capable than others or better looking than others. This kind of comparing is one of Satan’s favorite devices. Anything we have accomplished is because God works through us. Another thing is that we should realize that much of what we are is actually a composite of what hundreds of people have put into our lives. Much of the good in our lives is a result of what ‘Godly parents’ friend, pastors and teachers have deposited into our lives over the years. Isaac Newton the renowned English mathematician and scientist once remarked ‘‘if I have seen farther than others, it is because I have stood on the shoulders of giants’’ Contact:gahimore@yahoo.com