I have been young, and now am old;
– Psalm 37:25-31
yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken
or His children begging bread.
He is ever giving liberally and lending,
and His children become a blessing.
Depart from evil, and do good;
so shall you abide for ever.
For the Lord loves justice;
He will not forsake his saints.
The righteous shall be preserved for ever,
but the children of the wicked shall be cut off.
The righteous shall possess the land,
and dwell upon it for ever.
The mouth of the righteous utters wisdom,
and his tongue speaks justice.
The law of his God is in his heart;
his steps do not slip.
I once heard that the Psalms are the most tear-soaked pages of the Bible. This wouldn’t surprise me in the least: the Psalms are the most approachable content in the Bible (meaning more people have probably read them) and the content is rawly relatable (in many of them, David is lamenting – expressing sorrow over both his sins and the situation they placed him in – which cradles the grief-stricken reader). Point being, if you’re looking for a place to non-committally dip your toes in the water with the Bible, the book of Psalms is your best bet.
With my ogling over King David’s writing out of the way, let’s begin.
Justice Calls Upon Humility
Fairness requires having and understanding all of the facts available. It also does well to understand that there are going to be missing pieces, however small, and that those missing pieces may form the metaphorical grain of rice that tips the scale.
In other words, we have to accept that even doing our very best, we might very well get the verdict very wrong.
Still, justice mandates that we try. We must try, and we must try to compensate for the information we don’t know. In order to do that, we need to accept that there is information we don’t know, and from there we can assess the best way to compensate for the shortfall. The process can only start when we have the humility to be honest about the situation so that we can properly address it.
Previous understandings of humility may still pose a stumbling block. In lieu of returning to the post on humility, here’s a summary: humility is recognizing that humans are both great and greatly flawed, none better than another, and each with amazing talents as well as shortfalls. It’s seeing reality in its proper perspective.
Humility means nothing other than complete honesty about yourself. A genuinely humble person will be able to see both good and bad, both virtues and faults, both gifts and failings in herself. Since God loves you anyway, there is no virtue in making yourself out to be better than you are – and none in making yourself out to be worse.
– L. William Countryman, Good News of Jesus
In short, we need humility to properly assess fairness. Without gauging whether or not we’re on the right track, we can’t know if we’re on any track at all. Stay grounded; it gives us the baseline to walk uprightly forward.
Humility Slays Pride
Pride is another sin of excess. (I’m sensing a theme here.) In proper amounts, confidence is a good thing. When we are properly confident in our abilities, we can use them to help others. However, if we claim confidence in our abilities but wrongly so, it can lead to ruin.
That’s where humility and justice come in.
Humility calls for an honest assessment of ourselves, and justice demands fairness in the assessment. Using these virtues as tools, we can accurately determine our skills – strengths and weaknesses alike – and figure out the best path forward. In figuring out the best path forward, we not only choose our path, but we also prepare ourselves for what we are going to face – making it more likely that we will succeed.
By Defeating Pride, Humility Aids Success
Simple example from daily life (which I only recognized because I stopped to look around for it, even though it has been visible for reflection for a few years at this point). Are you an artist? A budding artist? A totally non-artist willing to have fun with art?
With respect to visual art, I absolutely fall into that final category. (Reference: slayer picture above.) Now the fun question: have you ever done one of those painting classes?
I have. I’ve gone with friends a couple of times. They’re a lot of fun! I highly recommend them if you like to have fun and can be light-hearted about the experience.
The first time I went, for that first half-hour, I painstakingly attempted to copy the teacher verbatim, stroke for stroke, breath for breath. I wanted the picture to be perfect. After about half an hour, I noticed that I wasn’t having much fun, that I was practically ignoring my friends in my efforts, and that I was getting flustered and frustrated and was only a hair away from seriously upset.
We had only painted a few strokes, but because I follow directions well, I thought that meant I could paint it perfectly the first time. What an ego! And, as I mentioned, it got in the way of everything else.
I let go of perfection, and the rest of the event was fun, playful, and friend-filled.
I took the lesson to my second round. Good thing, too: we were painting Starry Night, and there’s no way I’m Van Gogh. I realized as we were getting our paints that I didn’t want to be: I wanted to use different colors. And to try something slightly different with the moon. And to include more blatantly what I saw in the original painting as a ship stuck on top of the mountain.
We not only had a lot of fun, but I enjoy the painting I walked away with. It’s not a Van Gogh; it was never really intended to be. Because I knew I couldn’t precisely copy the master, I took what he did, learned from it, and made it my own and to better suit my tastes. I still like the painting for both the memories and as well as the image itself. It still tickles me to see the ship on the top of the mountain and the beautiful orange swirls in the night.
Humility let me accept my skills and style and adapt them to make something worth smiling at while it hangs on the wall.
Some ask if swallowing your pride is conceding defeat. I don’t think so. Humility is a sign of inner strength and wisdom.
– Haemin Sunim, The Things You Can See Only When You Slow Down
Humility helped me to win on all fronts: great experience, playful time with friends, more fun with the painting itself, and a painting that I actually enjoy. (Meanwhile, the one I kept trying to get “perfect” is nowhere to be found.)
Know Thyself – Conquer Pride
Pride essentially breaks down into not knowing who we are in the grand scheme of things. We’re imperfect – that’s part of the nature of our humanity. Our imperfections are part of what make us beautiful. We are able to choose right or wrong, and every time we choose right is an enormous victory. Meanwhile, any time we choose wrong is an opportunity and prompting to lean on God because we were never meant to do this without Him.
Man, when perfected, is the best of animals, but when separated from law and justice, he is the worst of all.
– Aristotle, Politics
We are fallible, we are flawed – but we are also God’s beloved creation. There is balance in this truth. Humility helps us to know that we are but specks of sand in a desert compared to time, the absolute, and the Almighty. Simultaneously, there is no despair when we know God’s love for us.
Summary
Humility and justice travel hand-in-hand. Justice relies on humility to use correct data to arrive at an accurate result. Meanwhile, a rational perspective on an absolute scale – such as comparing oneself to Jesus during his years on Earth – has justice feeding into humility. Who are we, in all fairness, compared to the King of Kings?
Pride doesn’t stand a chance against humility and justice. When we’re honest with ourselves about our strengths and our weaknesses, we can properly assess a way forward and not get caught up in our own self-perceived grandiosity because, on a universal scale, we are dust. Talented, thoughtful dust, but dust nonetheless.
Render true judgments, show kindness and mercy each to his brother.
– Zechariah 7:9
Further Reading
- From Pride to Humility: A Biblical Perspective by Dr. Stuart Scott
- Father Casey wrote a great article that is both approachable and helps us reflect on our individual struggles with pride. Maybe you forgive easily but you gossip just as easily. This article explains the problem of pride backed with various Bible verses and gives a list of several questions we can use to help us identify our strengths and weaknesses with respect to pride. Home run!
- Derek Prince also investigated pride and humility in this article with a more theological angle. I shrunk the text to read it (because it automatically loads at about 150% the size of other pages), but it was worth the effort as it to read about the seven self-humblings and seven exaltations of Jesus.
- Psalm 37 – the chapter in full. It’s a quick read, and I find it uplifting on days I find myself stewing on the unfairness of the world.
- Interested in learning more about the Psalms? Among Swords_into_ploughshares many offerings is an in-depth analysis of the Psalms. It’s definitely worth a skim or a thorough readthrough if you are studying the Psalms in depth.
I’m unsure about the bullet points.. maybe somewhat overdone.