For if I do wish to
boast I will not be foolish, for I will be speaking the truth; but I refrain from this, so that no one will credit
me with more than he sees in me
or hears from me (II Corinthians 12:6 NASB).
The Apostle
Paul was a man of humility. This
probably explains why God could have so mightily used him. The commentator Matthew Henry believed that
humility was the foundation for all of our other Christian virtues. As
important as it is, it is still somewhat enigmatic in nature.
We know
humility when we see it in a person, but it very difficult to define or
label. It seems to be manifested
differently in different people. How we
receive it is also somewhat nebulous.
Richard Foster in his book Celebration
of Discipline says, “Humility,
as we all know, is one of those virtues that is never gained by seeking it. The
more we pursue it the more distant it becomes. To think we have it is sure
evidence we don’t.”
During my time as a missionary I taught
in Youth With A Mission (YWAM for short) discipleship training schools. On one occasion a YWAM director phoned to
invite me to teach a week at his center. He said to me, “I want you to do your
series on humility.” I paused for a few seconds and then said, “I don’t have a
series on humility.” He replied, “Yes, you do—the one where you talk about the
chicken farm and all that stuff.” Call me slow or call me clueless, but I had
never put the two
together. I think there may have been a reason God kept
me so clueless. Knowing my heart, if I had thought I had even a minuscule
understanding of humility, I would probably have been tempted to be proud of my
humility.
Humility
must be something we do not seek or receive directly; it must be a
by-product of some other pursuit. What pursuit? Foster says, “More than any
other single way, the grace of humility is worked into our
lives through the discipline
of service.” Do you
want to develop the grace of humility and also see your gifts and
callings released?
Find a church and make yourself available for service and see what
God does. Bernard of
Clairvaux once said, “Learn this lesson that, if you are to do
the work of a prophet, what you need is not a scepter but a hoe.”
Adapted
from “The Chicken Farm and Other Sacred Places”
YWAM Publishing
Email: kenbarnes737@gmail.com
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