This post is an excerpt from The Power of a Humble Life by Richard E. Simmons III

Being humble is not something that comes naturally to us as human beings. I have found that most people do not really know what humility looks like. Historically, humility has been linked to the word meekness. In the Beatitudes we hear Jesus say, “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.” Of course, meekness rhymes with weakness, so who in the world would possibly want to be meek? I have never heard a father say, “I want my son to grow up and be meek.”

The word “meekness” surprisingly comes from the word praus, which is a powerful animal that knows how to restrain its power. The idea here is that meek and humble people are powerful people, though they do not flaunt their strength and power.

I think it is important to note that since C.S. Lewis said that pride is the anti-God state of mind, it is only logical that humility is seeking God’s mindset and His view of life. If Lewis is correct when he says that pride leads to every other vice, then humility must be the root of all virtues. Without understanding God’s place in the universe, there really is no way for us to understand humility.

Famous skeptic Friedrich Nietzsche loathed Christianity because he believed it was for weak people. He hated the way the God of the Bible took such an offense at the pride of man. He believed the Christian attack on pride was to mask the weakness of humility in the Christian faith.

The great theologian John Stott responds with these powerful words:

At no point does the Christian mind come into more violent collision with the secular mind than in its insistence on humility, with all the weakness it entails. The wisdom of the world values power, not humility. We have drunk in more of the power philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche than we realize. Nietzsche dreamed of the rise of a daring ruler race. Tough, masculine, and oppressive Nietzsche worshipped power. He despised Jesus for His weakness. The ideal of Nietzsche was the Übermensch, the superman, but the ideal of Jesus was the little child. There is no possibility of compromise between these two images; we are obliged to choose.

C.S. Lewis says that in God, we encounter something that is immeasurably superior to ourselves. In his book, Guide to Humility, Thomas Jones says,

Humility is so right because it so squares with reality. It is a reality that we owe other people a great deal. Now consider an even deeper reality. There is a God and you are not Him. There is a great and awesome God who created the Heavens and the Earth and you are not Him. There is a God who knows all, and understands all, and is in control of all, and you are not Him. And I am not Him. He is God, and we are not. He is the great God, and you and I are small people. Very small in comparison to Him.

I find it interesting what Jones says about being in control. Many people keep God at a safe distance because they do not want Him to interfere with their lives. They do not in any way want to give up control of their lives. However, you have to wonder, do we really have that much control over anything?

For instance:

•  Did you have any control over when and where you were born?
•  Did you have any control over the color of your skin, your eyes, your hair, your height?
  
•  Do you have any control over your talents, your abilities, or your intelligence?
• Do you have any control over the economy, the stock market, interest rates, or the deficit?
• Although we try to live healthy lives, do we have control over getting cancer or Alzheimer’s, or having a stroke?
• As my children get older and become more independent, I am realizing that soon I will have little or no control over them. They will be making their own decisions and choices.
• Do we have control over the aging process?
• In all probability, we will have no control over how and when we die.
• Finally, when we do die, we experience the loss of every earthly thing we gained in this life.

So, are we really in control of much of anything?

We don’t seem to recognize this, or at least have not given it much thought. We are not in control. We are weak creatures; our bodies are wasting away, which in itself should cause us to see our great need for God. Only when we understand our need for Him does true humility begin. As Andrew Murray puts it, “Humility, the place of entire dependence on God, is the first duty of the creature and is the root of every good human quality.”

Pride seeks to be independent of God. At its heart, the pride we speak of is spiritual. Søren Kierkegaard, the famous Danish philosopher, observed that we all suffer from spiritual pride. We think we can accomplish great things, achieve prosperity, and find a purpose that is big enough to discover meaning in life, and do all of this without God. The prideful heart of man causes him to believe, “I do not need God.”

I am reminded of a conversation I had with a good friend several years ago. His father was a very wealthy, self-made man and had built a large, successful business on his own. One day my friend approached his father and shared his concern that his father had no spiritual life. His father responded, “What do I need God for? I have everything I need.” You can see why C.S. Lewis calls pride “the anti-God state of mind.”

I do not know if this man ever changed his mind, but a few years after he had made this declaration of not needing God, he died. Over time, life has a way of humbling us all.

God’s Point of View

I think it is significant that God has such high regard for the humble, and such great contempt against the proud.

In the Old Testament, in Isaiah 2:12-17 we are told:

For the Lord of Hosts will have a day of reckoning against everyone who is proud and lofty, against everyone who is lifted up, that he may be abased. And it will be against all the cedars of Lebanon that are lofty and lifted up, against all the oaks of Bashan, against every high tower, against every fortified wall, against all the ships of Tarsus, and against all the beautiful craft. The pride of man will be humbled, and the loftiness of men will be abased, and the Lord alone will be exalted in that day.

In Proverbs 16:5,

Everyone who is proud in heart is an abomination to the Lord; assuredly, he will not go unpunished.

There is also a phrase that you see several times in the New Testament, that God is “opposed to the proud.” Seeing that God is totally against those who are proud and arrogant and that it is an abomination in His sight should get our attention.

On the other hand, it is quite clear that God has special regard and honor for the humble. We are told:

Oh, Lord, You have heard the desire of the humble. You will strengthen their heart. You will incline Your ear (Psalm 10:17).

He leads the humble in justice. He teaches the humble His way (Psalm 25:9).

When pride comes, then comes dishonor, but, with the humble, there is wisdom (Proverbs 11:2).

A man’s pride will bring him low, but a humble spirit will obtain honor (Proverbs 29:23).

Humble yourselves in the presence of the Lord and He will exalt you (James 4:10).

Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you at the proper time (1 Peter 5:6).

And then most significantly, in both James 4:16 and 1 Peter 5:5, we are told that “God gives grace to the humble.” Under no other circumstances does He ever promise to give His grace—only to the humble. This is a very significant promise.

Grace is a word that is often misunderstood and literally means receiving God’s favor. The most common definition used in the Bible is the unmerited favor of God, which applies to salvation. But in the New Testament, the word “grace” is most commonly applied to living this life with God’s power—a divine enablement. Through grace, God enables us to do that which we cannot do ourselves (Hebrews 13:9; 2 Timothy 2:1). Grace is incredibly significant. God gives His strength and power only to the humble through grace. This, of course, is the theme of this book: “the power of a humble life.”

Who Gets the Credit

Pride is not only competitive in nature but causes us to gloat because we feel superior to those with whom we compare ourselves. We can take all the credit for our success. It is like the saying, “He was born on third base but somehow thinks he hit a triple.”

Pride looks at life and takes credit for all the good things. Pride says, “I accomplished it; I worked harder than everyone else; I deserve it, and therefore I should receive all the glory.”

Tim Keller says that pride claims to be the author of everything good we do and accomplish. Therefore we believe we deserve all the credit. He says it is a form of cosmic plagiarism, where you have been given something as a gift but then you take all the credit for it and say, “I did it; it is my work.”

In the Old Testament, Moses said that arrogance is looking at your life, your abilities, and your achievements, and thinking in your heart that it is your strength, your power, and your ability that has led to all your success. Humility helps you to recognize that all you are and all you have is a gift from God and a result of other people contributing to your life. Read the following example from Drayton Nabers, Jr.’s book, The Case for Character:

Let’s take the example of a tailback who wins the Heisman Trophy. This Heisman winner gets his name in the paper and his face on ESPN. But where did he get the DNA that created the strong body? And where did he get the great coordination that helped him win the prize? How many of the one hundred trillion cells in his body did he create?

We are told that for each of these cells there is a bank of instructions more detailed than the thirty-two volumes of the Encyclopedia Britannica put together. Does this tailback understand even one of these instructions? (For that matter, does even the smartest doctor or biologist in the world fully understand the marvel of a single human cell?)

“But I worked so hard,” the tailback might say. “I went to the weight room. I practiced harder than anyone else on the team.”

To him we could reply: “But who taught you to work that hard? Who built the weight room? Who bought the equipment?

Who built the university, including the stadium you played in? Who cut the grass there and laid out the lines and boundaries? Did you hire or pay your coaches? Did you recruit your team- mates? Did you open up those holes in the line that you ran through?

If this tailback has humility, he will express nothing but overflowing gratitude when he wins the Heisman—to his parents, to his teachers, to his coaches, to all the players on his team, to everyone who helped him along the way. Most of all, time and time again, he will express gratitude to God.

In describing humility, Nabers states:

. . . humility is a form of wisdom. It is thinking clearly. It is simply being realistic. It is knowing who really deserves the credit and the glory for what we do.

This ageless thought says it all: “We drink from wells we did not dig and we are warmed by fires we did not build” (Deuteronomy 6:11). In this light, humility is only logical.

I often share a powerful, true story in my speeches because it enables us to see the clear contrast between pride and humility. The story comes from Stephen K. Scott’s book, The Richest Man Who Ever Lived.

My former church pastor, Dr. Jim Borror, while visiting a church in the Northwest, was asked by a woman to meet with her husband, a multimillionaire entrepreneur with thousands of employees. Although this man had tens of millions of dollars and everything money could buy, he was unhappy, bitter, and cantankerous. No one liked being around him, and contention and strife followed him wherever he went. He was disliked by his employees and even his children. His wife barely tolerated him.

When he met the man, Dr. Borror listened to him talk about his accomplishments and quickly realized that pride ruled this man’s heart and mind. He claimed he had single-handedly built his company from scratch. Even his parents hadn’t given him a dime. He had worked his way through college.

Jim said, “So you did everything by yourself.” “Yep,” the man replied.

Jim repeated, “No one ever gave you anything.” “Nothing!”

So Jim asked, “Who changed your diapers? Who fed you as a baby? Who taught you how to read and write? Who gave you your first job after college? Who serves food in your company’s cafeteria? Who cleans the toilets in your company’s rest rooms?” The man hung his head in shame. Moments later, with tears in his eyes, he said, “Now that I think about it, I haven’t accomplished anything by myself. Without the kindness and efforts of others, I probably wouldn’t have anything.” Jim nodded and asked, “Don’t you think they deserve a little thanks?”

That man’s heart was transformed, seemingly overnight. In the months that followed, he wrote thank-you letters to every person he could think of who had made a contribution to his life. He wrote thank-you notes to every one of his 3,000 employees. He not only felt a deep sense of gratitude, he began to treat everyone around him with respect and appreciation.

When Dr. Borror visited him a year or two later, he could hardly recognize him. Happiness and peace had replaced the anger and contention in his heart. He looked years younger. His em- ployees loved him for treating them with the honor and respect that true humility engenders.

In this story you see the dark side of arrogance and what it can do to a person’s life and relationships. This man was disliked by everyone with whom he came into contact. Most significantly, he took all the credit for their contributions to his accomplishments. Clearly he had no awareness of the pride that ruled his heart and mind.

Once he had been wisely confronted by Dr. Borror, a major transformation took place in his life. As he began to give people the proper credit that was due them, everything changed. Not only did it impact the relationships he had with others, but it transformed this man’s life. There is power in the humble life.