“Before I was humbled I went astray,
but now I keep your word.”
— Psalm 119:67 (NRSV)
Nobody wants to be humbled because
of the cost of psychological discomfort and the humiliation of pride. But God
has his purposes in our humiliation; for none are free of sinful pride.
It is Wisdom, of course, that
inspires a person to not run foul of humility’s path. The role of the father
and grandfather of Proverbs chapters 1–9 is to instruct the son. The son, it is
said, follows the path of humility with diligence and prudence, but all too
many sons do not follow that path; they run astray. It is a familiar path.
They who run astray—the majority
of us—venture upon a view that life is worth a chance. We try our luck as we
throw what God has given us into the ring of life; not cherishing it. We run
alone. And we never realise the fall that we have set for ourselves.
God has a purpose in our
humiliation. This is not the humiliation that comes to us at the hand of
another. This God-purposed humiliation is self-ordained. God’s rebuke comes
directly at our hand; our choice has been made; it’s our fault and ours alone.
It’s almost as if many of us need
a Prodigal Son story before we can truly understand the way life works and God
in the midst of that life. Up until then, no matter how much work we do for the
Kingdom the fullness of blessing isn’t, and can’t be, realised.
Until we put God first God cannot
put us first for the extension of his Kingdom.
Until we are broken, having had
our flesh comprehensively beaten by the ever-prevailing Spirit of God, we are
as good as useless for the Kingdom, as we fabricate a front-of-stage presence
from a phoney back-of-stage.
There are some who have given
their entire lives to Christian ministry who have not yet been broken. They
still partake of milk when they could have meat. They pretend they have the
meat, but they lead exposed for the discerning to see. Meat they cannot digest.
They have not the character forged in humility from an essential and precursory
humiliation. They never learned to truly rely on God.
I gather many will struggle with
this theology. But I wonder if Jesus would. He wrangled with the religious
rulers of the day—the hypocrites.
What comes of humiliation, what
produces humility, is the servant of God turning the right way having been
humbled. And having turned the right way they are blessed to know God more
intimately than most will ever know him. The humbled know that the centre of
the gospel is the message of repentance—that humility is borne on truth; God is
holy and we are entirely not. These truths are not just motherhood statements.
They are real in the Jesus-follower’s life.
***
God uses humiliation very well.
Having fallen, together with the humility to repent, the humiliated person
becomes a paragon of God; ever intimate with the Lord’s ways. Humility is a
chalice, a divine trophy, but it comes not without humiliation.
© 2013 S. J. Wickham.
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