I’ve never loved the word humility cuz it just scared, bored or confused me. In the back of my mind, I equated it with being a pussy. Yea yea gasp at my inappropriate language. But forreal. In my stupid thick pride, I had a small voice saying that humility wasn’t all that deep, that it was just whatevers, that I got that lesson down pat so let’s move on to the more exciting stuff.

Man. I was wrong. So wrong. (yay I think I just got delivered.)

Humility is foundational, is beautiful, simple and yet intricate…it’s an essential strand in the DNA of God. Without it…shudder. Everybody in Heaven exudes H.

Jesus humbled himself, He became the servant of all, He’s the redefining of humility. And He is the most beautiful and most interesting and coolest person I have ever met. I don’t know how I could’ve glossed over this essential quality of His!

Humility is knowing where I stand in relation to God, which isn’t exactly like knowing my identity, but related to it. It’s like…living out and accepting my identity…being confident in my identity, knowing my position in the Kingdom, loving that position (meaning I don’t covet your position nor bemoan mine), and not being timid about where I stand because we haven’t been given a timid or fearful spirit.

Humility is not presuming you’re better or worse than anyone–because you don’t compare yourself with others, you’re just simply confident in what God says about you so you don’t need to look around you to see if it’s true or not. Your only measuring stick is What He Says.

Humility is not trying to pound revelation or wisdom into somebody else, no matter how much you know it’ll help them. You just be yourself, be the Word Become Freshly Flesh and trust Holy Spirit that they’ll get it.

Humility is not doing Holy Spirit’s job, but doing yours.

Humility is openness to learn something new about God everyday, whether from a situation, event, stranger, friend, old person, young person, man, woman, creature…it’s knowing I really don’t know a whole lot at all.

Humility is loving, serving, submitting…which sometimes means holding my tongue, letting it go, exercising patience, and sometimes bearing injustices quietly, invisibly, regally and nobly, not seeking self-righteous vengeance but trusting in God’s justice.

It’s resisting the very real desire to ram my car into the white truck that just purposely cut me off 3times in a row on the 5 fwy during morning rush hour (this really happened. Today.). It’s resisting the teacherly desire to pull up beside him and release a scathing diatribe on driving etiquette and his very bad attitude.

It’s listening to my mom bemoan the pain of childbirth and let her feel her emotions rather than lecture her on the fact that Jesus reversed every curse, including the pain of childbirth, and thereby risk totally invalidating her thoughts and cares.

It’s owning up to and apologizing to my friend regarding a betrayal that happened over five years ago during a time when i was so jacked up I look back and can’t identify myself with that girl who so cruelly broke my friend’s beautiful heart. But I take it and receive it and ask for forgiveness when she comes to me with tears and bitterness and a wound that has been festering for 5 years. I fess it all, I take it all because not only do I know I am not that 5-yrs-ago girl, but also that forgiveness, freedom and healing are so much more important than how she might “define” or “see” me.

I haven’t even begun to scratch the surface of humility’s beauty, its necessity, its eternal power. I just know I want to learn to live in humility more and more. I think if every politician and world leader took a dose of the H-pill, we would truly have us some global shalom.