Being Humble

Being Humble

“The greater you are, the more you should behave humbly and then you will find favour with the Lord.”(Ecclesiasticus 3:18-19). The above verse helps us to understand that one should concentrate on what we have been assigned to. We should try not to understand things that are too difficult for us or discover what is beyond our power. It is a much more humbling experience for one to knock at God’s door (Luke 11:10) – the one who knocks will always have the door opened to him.

Sometimes, we forget that to be humble, we have to surrender all our knowledge, demands and ceases from every self-effort and strength. We must leave ourselves completely into God's Hand. Beware of self-desires which could hinder the work we want to put in love before God. We need to totally surrender and abandon ourselves to the Lord. He is our Lord, our God. Let us love our God with all our heart, all our soul and with all our might. Submitting our desires, our plans to God is giving Him the awe, the reverence and honor, as He alone has all our plans since the beginning of time.

True humility is to be concerned for others and out of love we share our faith with them to know Christ. Paul said, “Forget yourselves long enough to lend a helping hand.” (Philippians 2:4). We become more aware of the needs of others when we stop focusing on our own. Most of the time a lot of our service is self-serving. We serve to get others to like us, to achieve our own goals or to be admired. Isn’t that manipulation? The whole time we are thinking about ourselves and how noble and wonderful we are. How do we react when we are taken for granted, bossed around and treated as an inferior? As quoted in the bible “If one of the occupation troops forces you to carry his pack one mile, carry it two miles." (Matthew 5:41). For when we take the 'extra miles', we experience our Lord's humility. Thus the humbling experience of us may say to one another - "We may not necessary be right all the time but let us learn through such experience to grow together".

Humility contributes to success in work and relationships. Humility is not having a need to be more than who you are. Being humble is to avoid pride, arrogance, others might have exhibited. If you have the “I know it all attitude”, would you listen, understand and value others? Humility is to ability to identify with others. It is saying “I am sorry” or “Thank you” when the need arises. Every successful people go through loss, failure and crisis. Even if one were successful, we accept our failures and mistakes and see them as part of the process of “we’ve all been there”

Remember the times we started to work, we are ever so humble, willing to learn from our colleagues, though there were times we had our fair share of being scolded and bullied. Yet as some of us climb the corporate ladder, we can become egoistic and hurt others with our words and actions. By being humble, one is able to learn, and share with others. The more we give of ourselves without expectation of return, the more they come back to us from the most unexpected source. Luke Gospel 6:38 teaches us that when we give to others, God will give us gifts where we will receive in the full measure, a generous helping that will be poured out into our hands -all that we can hold. Let us make it a habit to look for the good in every person and situation and keep focus on helping other people and always put our Lord as the centre of our lives.

People who are humble tend to be givers of themselves. It is not self-centred. It is extending oneself to reach out to others, to understand, highly appreciated and loved. It is to create true network of care in their lives. To empower high quality relationships, there could be high quality of giving and understanding. When the giving is pure, one does not give to get love or appreciation. They give freely and they are truly able to identify with others. Self-confidence and belief in yourself comes from accepting flaws and mistakes and realizing that you can go forward and grow past them and that you can learn from them. We see our own flaws as a key to growing in wisdom and learning how to make things work. It is also to get valuable feedback.

There is no place for petty jealously when you want to be humble. When you are busy serving, you don’t have time to be critical. Genuine servanthood don’t complain of unfairness, don’t have pity parties, and don’t resent those not serving. They just trust God and keep serving. Paul said: “You may brag about yourself but the only approval that counts is the Lord’s approval” (2 Corinthians 10:18). The closer you get to Jesus, the less you need to promote yourself.

“Lord, you are the potter and I am the clay (Isaiah 64:8) and I give you the full power over my life to mould me as you see fit. I surrender my life to you and release it into your hands. Teach me to be humble and allow me to serve you in your glory in whatever I do.”