April 30, 2009

Humility, Growth, Bitterness

Do you think we're supposed to love other people more than we love ourselves? Are we supposed to love ourselves at all? At least in the Medieval sense of piety pride is bashed constantly and humility and hatred of oneself is constantly affirmed and praised. How are we supposed to love ourselves? How can anyone who looks into his heart and searches the depths of his spirit; how can that man love himself? How can he find any worth in himself? Is there anything worth saving? It sure doesn't seem like it to me.

I've always heard people talk about how one is supposed to see himself as worse than everyone else, how he's supposed to see himself as the worst of sinners. But my question has always been "But… what if you ARE better than they are? Are you supposed to feign humility? Isn't that false humility?"

Here is what humility is not: it's not about saying "Oh I'm such a sinner… woe to me! look how evil my heart is!" out loud. It's never about telling anyone that you're a worse sinner than they are. It's never about saying out loud "Oh I'm the worst of sinners." Now don't take I'm saying it should never be said or that it's somehow sinful to say such things… but it can easily become a very arrogant form of humility. I hate to use the Pharisees as an example because they get bashed so much by everyone, but like Jesus said in the sermon on the mount, it's not about doing stuff in public. It's not about other people knowing you're humble. It doesn't matter if people say you're humble or arrogant, because what people say doesn't change what you are. That's something I've realized lately. Words are not truth. Truth is truth. Neither do words change truth.

Here's what I think a part of humility is. You can see inside of yourself, while you cannot see inside of other people. It isn't possible in a literal sense to get into other people's heads. I can see all the junk in my heart that you can't see, I can see all the laziness and arrogance and general filthy sinfulness that goes through my mind. I can see my motives, you can't. So obviously the inverse follows: I can't see all the stuff that goes through your mind. Keep these postulates in mind, I'll use them in a second.

So another part of Christianity is about being optimistic (don't get me wrong, there is definitely a place for melancholy, sadness, bitter pessimism. I'll address that in a moment). It's about assuming the best about people. It's about overlooking their faults. Not even just overlooking and ignoring their faults, but seeing them for who they are with all the baggage they have, and it's about loving them for who they are. It's not about trying to cover their faults and making them look as much like a perfect person as you can so that you can treat them with some semblance of respect and dignity, it's about loving them: feeling affection in your heart and living in a way that puts them above yourself. You see that they're people, that they have history that makes them who they are. You understand them. Love.

If we put these two ideas together, I think we get humility. If I can see all the black inner workings of myself and I can't see the same or lack thereof in other people, and if I'm seeing people in love while overlooking but not burying their faults, aren't I naturally going to think poor of myself and more of others? That, I think, is humility. If you have this mindset, I think you almost naturally fall into thinking of others as better than yourself, deep down in your very heart, not merely in words. And it's always about truth, not words. Christianity is not about forms but about heart and intention, though you certainly cannot have heart and intention independent of form. It's about God transforming through spirit and form our heart and intention.

Christianity is a process. I cannot stress that fact enough. It is about growth and transformation, it's about healing and reconcilation, it's about glorification; continual movement forwards. I know a lot of people who feel very pessimistic, who are upset with the church and where they see many Christians around them, people who are frustrated with all the sin and spiritual laxity they see, people who's hearts are bitter and quick to judge. I empathize. You know I do. If you've read my blog long enough, I'm sure you know that fact. I'd like to give you this word: those things are not wrong. It's alright to feel bitter. It's alright to be upset. It's a part of the process of growing up as a Christian. If you stick to God and work out your salvation with fear and trembling, God will grow you, he will transform you, he will heal you. He will move you forwards and mature you. I told a friend recently that babies can't help crying. We don't yell at infants when they begin to cry; it's a natural part of growing up. So also babies need milk, and we do not blame them for needing milk and not being able to consume meat. Dissillusionment is one of the beginning stages of God transforming the heart.

I don't mean to say that babies should never mature and should live their entire life drinking milk; God forbid. So also if you spend years and years reveling in bitter judgemental condemnation of everyone around you, you are missing God's transformational power and you're stagnating. But to feel for a season such feelings is only the natural course of events; they are the growing pangs of the Christian. It merely indicates that we are growing in our ability to recognize sin, spiritual laxity, carnality. As God slowly opens our contracted and selfish hearts he will grant us grace to give others grace, to see what we truly are, grace to love others for who they are and over ourselves. But patience is required. God is not in the habit of making people perfect overnight; it is a slow process. Have patience with yourself, if not for your own sake then for God's sake.