Humbleness

We sang a song in church today by David Crowder called "All Creatures of Our God and King." This is an absolutely fabulous song. I think I caught somewhere that these lyrics were written by St. Francis of Assisi, but I'm not sure. It's immaterial. There's a verse that says:

All creatures their Creator bless

And worship Him in humbleness

Oh Praise Him

Oh Praise Him

That got me to thinking about this "humbleness" thing. This is really something I need to work on...I have a large propensity for arrogance, pride, and this "it's my way or the highway" attitude. Nevertheless, there are a few passages this word reminded me of:

So Samuel said, "When you were little in your own eyes, were you not head of the tribes of Israel? And did not the LORD anoint you king over Israel?" 1 Samuel 15:17

This is where Samuel is confronting Saul about not keeping the Lord's command to utterly destroy the Amalekites. My point really isn't in any of the details of the story; I just really like Samuel's rendering of the virtue of humilty:

"When you were little in your own eyes...."

I think this is a great definition of what it means to be humble: be little in your own eyes.

Here's the second passage I thought of:

So [Gideon] said to Him, "O my Lord, how can I save Israel? Indeed my clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father's house." Judges 6:15

This is the story of Gideon. It's a pretty well known story, and we're all familiar with the great victory God gave to Gideon using just a few hundred men. If my memory serves me correctly, they gained victory over 100,000+ men of the enemy! That's a pretty incredible victory, but take notice of Gideon's heart: he considered himself to be the least in his whole family, in the whole tribe. He really did not have a very high opinion of himself. What a good way to be.

Finally, here's the last passage I thought of:

Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself. Philippians 2:3

What an incredible passage. So often in school we were taught about the importance of having high self esteem. The world teaches us to esteem ourselves highly, whereas Christ teaches us to esteem others more highly than ourselves. I really like what this passage says of Christ a few verses later:

...He made Himself of no reputation.

What a great picture of what it means to be humble. It really is a virtue we ought to work toward:

To be little in our own eyes

To consider ourselves the least

Esteem others more highly than ourselves

Make ourselves of no reputation