The Power In Humility

Years ago, when God inspired me to write the lyrics to “Power in Humility,” I was in the midst of a very long valley.  My pride had destroyed me, but it wasn’t like you might think. My pride wasn’t manifesting itself overtly; rather, it had launched me into a mentality of being a self-centered victim. You see, pride doesn’t manifest itself only as someone who thinks more highly than they ought to think. Pride is at the root of any kind of egocentric behavior; ESPECIALLY continuing to live like a victim—after Christ has redeemed us. I was hurt and dissatisfied with my life and—I blamed everyone else. While others HAD hurt me and failed me, it was my PRIDE that held me back from living in the freedom of my salvation. Everything that happened was about me. It was classic “stuck inside my head” behavior. My pride had made “me” the center of my thoughts and desires and it had been slowly destroying me for years. Truth be told, it had done more harm to me than those who had hurt me. 

Thus, every aspect of my life—especially my personal life—was in shambles. If you’ve read my story, you know it was there, in the wreckage, where I came face to face with the truth of God’s Word: 

“Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.” 

Proverbs 16:18

I needed a bucket of cold water dumped on me as a wake-up call from my pride-coma. God’s Word shined the light on my selfish pride and let me see how it had led to a train wreck. But He didn’t leave me there. God, in His graciousness—showed me the richness of His goodness—the kind I didn’t know existed in a relationship with Him. I was amazed. I was drawn. As I studied His Word and began to try to have an honest relationship with Him, He began revealing to me many of the ways my pride separated me from knowing Him and had prevented me from hearing Him speak. What a miracle it’s been!

My friend, our pride is sneaky.

Pride masquerades as a friend while blinding us from the truth. It convinces us that we have all the answers and we don’t need God. Much like Eve in the Garden, we begin to think we can be like God. Pride tells us we can live without engaging God in EVERY aspect of our life. We don’t need His guidance for our business, family, daily provision, or friendships. We can keep Him on the sidelines just in case we have a crisis. So we check in with Him briefly at church or by reading a short devotional because that’s all we’re willing to make time for because our self-sufficiency is blinding us from the truth of our desperate need for Him!

Does this sound familiar? 

This is where I’ve been so many times. Believing “I’ve got this,” and that “my life” is my own. I quite ridiculously live like I can do my life better than He can. I ignore the reality of my complete poverty without Him. Our pride convinces us we don’t need God; but the truth is we cannot even draw a breath without His gracious presence!

“For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him. And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist.”

Colossians 1:16-17

It’s truly impossible for us to wrap our mind around our complete dependence upon God as the Creator and Sustainer of the universe. But we do ourselves a HUGE disservice if we do not try to keep His majesty central in our mind. To decentralize God from our thoughts quickly opens the door for the pride of SELF-sufficiency. David Guzik’s commentary on this passage in Colossians inspires me to center my entire life around Him and reject the worship of myself:

• Comets have vapor trails up to 10,000 miles long. If you could capture all that vapor, and put it in a bottle, the amount of vapor actually present in the bottle would take up less than 1 cubic inch of space.
• The earth travels around the sun about eight times the speed of a bullet fired from a gun.
• There are more insects in one square mile of rural land than there are human beings on the entire earth.
• A single human chromosome contains twenty billion bits of information. How much information is that? If written in ordinary books, in ordinary language, it would take about four thousand volumes.
• According to Greek scholar A.T. Robertson, all things were created has the idea of “stand created” or “remain created.” The permanence of the universe rests, then, on Christ far more than on gravity. It is a Christ-centric universe.”

Isn’t God’s majesty pleasantly humbling?

Doesn’t God’s grace in bending Himself down in love to care for helpless humanity inspire a passion to pursue Him? Ah, my friend, our pride is NEVER worth holding on to! Maintaining a humble state of mind enables us to draw close to God and learn to live with the guidance of His magnificent mind. 

“God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.” 

James 4:6

Pride continually sabotages God’s plan for the unimaginable  success God has planned for us! 

What does humility look like? 

It begins by acknowledging we don’t know everything; therefore, we intently seek God throughout the day. When God gave me the devotional series on the “be-attitudes” I was blown away about how foundational to our blessings it is to become poor in spirit! 

God must be the most important voice in our head. 

“He leads the humble in what is right, and teaches the humble his way.” 

Psalms 25:9

When we walk in God’s presence, He reveals profound and humbling truth. Job said it this way, 

“I had HEARD of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye SEES you; therefore I despise myself, and REPENT in dust and ashes.” 

Job 42:5-6

Humility opens us up to spiritual truths which are beyond human intellectual knowledge. Humility gives us peace because Almighty God becomes our greatest security. In our humility, we find His strength. This is the MAGNIFICENT “Power in Humility.”