After reading a profound little book called “Humility” by the minister and theologian of yesteryear, Andrew Murray, I decided to make an investigation into that quality which we find so magnetic in those who possess it. Needless to say my investigation continues, but my discoveries thus far have been as one who, seeking a morsel of bread, was invited into a royal feast to then be seated next to the King Himself. What follows are a few crumbs from that table. 

Knowing the definition and outward expression of this deeply spiritual, supernatural virtue can be helpful in some ways, but this knowledge is not sufficient for the gaining of its functional reality in one’s own life. It is a misconception to believe that the pursuit of humility is striving to behave and think humbly. Those who have tried can attest to its formidable difficulty, only to be rewarded with the realization that you desire recognition for your efforts at selflessness. It is altogether a counterintuitive method.

If the humility of Jesus Christ is rooted in grace and the fear of the Lord, being the very seed of all other fruits of the Spirit, then by its very nature its presence is invisible to the consciousness of those who possess it, for it abhors even the idea of its own awareness. 

Consider the Holy Trinity. Jesus Christ, the Son, glorifies the Father, declaring to His disciples that it was better that He go to the Father so that the Holy Spirit would come. The Spirit glorifies Christ, and there are many ways the Father glorifies the Son. They are all perfectly glorious and holy, yet since before forever, have dwelt in a state of unified love, delight, and glorification toward One Another. True humility is neither self conscious nor anxious, nor does it pursue itself to attain a sense of achieved godliness.

It is the fruit of the Spirit, a gift of grace, grown in through the deep abiding delight in the truly humble Son of Man. The reward is beholding the blessedness, the inexpressible rightness of the reality that in many ways, our lives are not our own.

Emma Davis