Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves… You should have the same attitude toward one another that Christ Jesus had … (From Philippians 2:3-5)
This past Lenten season (Ash Wednesday to Palm Sunday), our church replaced our normal corporate prayer time with a really unique responsive prayer called “The Litany of Humility.” A “litany” is simply a prayer that has oft-repeated parts, much like a chorus or refrain. This particular prayer is not really that old, probably only 150 years or so, but it summarizes the posture of humility that can be seen in our Lord Jesus and that His followers are exhorted (commanded/urged strongly by the apostles) to adopt. The litany goes like this:
O Jesus! Meek and humble of heart! Hear us.
(Repeated after each item below is the phrase, Deliver us, Jesus)
From the desire of being … esteemed, extolled, honored, praised, preferred to others, consulted, and approved.
From the fear of… Being humiliated, being despised, of suffering rebukes, being slandered, being forgotten, being ridiculed, being wronged and being suspected…
That others may be loved more than I… Jesus grant us the grace to desire it. (repeated after each item)
That others may be esteemed more than I…
That others may be chosen and I set aside…
That others may be praised and I unnoticed…
That others may be preferred to me in everything…
That others may become holier than I, provided that I seek holiness…God our Father, in your love and goodness you have taught us to come close to you in penitence with prayer, fasting and generosity; accept our Lenten discipline, and when we fall by our weakness, raise us up by your unfailing mercy; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
I have found this particular prayer impactful to my life this spring. It echoes the mental, emotional and spiritual weaknesses I struggle with every day.
- The desire to be honored and consulted.
- The fear of being forgotten or rebuked.
- The longing to be esteemed and praised and preferred.
The litany gives me a verbal platform to lay those weaknesses down at the merciful throne of God. It doesn’t change me instantly. I am still very weak. But by focusing on the laying down my own desires and wants I have — wonderfully — been better able to see how Jesus did the same thing during his ministry on earth.
I have been struck by the meekness and humility of Jesus during His passion (events leading to death). He was ridiculed and mocked by the Sanhedrin, accused by the Pharisees, struck by guards and spit upon by onlookers, bound and forced to stand before Pilate, scourged within an inch of his life, and finally nailed to the cross, the wooden beams upon which he died.
Through it all his attitudes and actions echoed the great “letting go” found in our modern Litany of Humility.
He was misunderstood and misrepresented. He was slandered and humiliated. He was rebuked by the religious leaders (and Peter!). He chose to serve instead of being served; and to not respond in violence when bound in Gethsemane. Instead of waiting to be approved by men, He entrusted himself to His approving Father. Like a lamb before the shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth in defense to the accusations against him.
“Don’t You have an answer to what these men are testifying against You?” The Pharisees demanded. But Jesus kept silent. Before Pilate, Jesus refused to answer even one charge brought forth against him (Matt 27:14).
Paul wrote to the Philippian church that our attitudes about pride, honor and ambition should like that of Jesus. The Lord left the side of God the Father in heaven and chose to submit Himself and His pride to dwell in the full form of man, following the words and dictates of the Father and humbling Himself to the point of death. Peter, who witnessed this great submission in person, implored us to follow Jesus into humility, refraining from anger and argument during times of innocent suffering, instead entrusting ourselves to God, and that we should clothe ourselves with humility.
“…all of you, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, for God is opposed to the proud, but gives grace to the humble. Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you at the proper time, casting all your anxiety on Him, because He cares for you…” (1 Peter 5:5-7)
Humility Under Attack
The biblical concept of humility flies in the face of our world’s idea of what makes one great or, at the least, what makes one of any value to society. There is no space for the meek in our world’s cultures. As I prayed the Litany of Humility this Lenten season, I noticed how our society values the very things the prayer seeks to deny. In our culture, we are taught to seek to be esteemed, extolled, honored, praised, preferred to others, consulted and approved. And if we are not granted one of those things, we should demand it.
I think that there are two primary areas of life that feed the desires listed above. One is in the workplace.
In the secular workplace, the desire for promotion and advancement seems to drive many people. Sometimes you work really, really hard and don’t get noticed. It is frustrating! Sometimes there is a strong temptation to undermine another worker or a boss in order to prop yourself up in someone else’s eyes. Sometimes the sense of ego says, “I can do that job better than they can…” Maybe it is true. Maybe it is fiction. But humility says, “I want them to succeed and I will support them in their tasks in whatever way I can.”
The same battle of ego can be true in the Christian workplace, especially in churches. This was my struggle for years. I have a graduate degree from a big seminary. I’m ordained. I’m trained to marry, bury, baptise and run a church service. I have started ministries and discipled souls. And yet, the battle to deny all of these “accomplishments” has been among my most fierce wars. My ego wants to be honored. It wants to be consulted on church matters. It wants to be esteemed and respected and… it deeply fears being forgotten. Being irrelevant. Being ridiculed by others.
Being humble, in my case, is to lay all of those things at the feet of Jesus and letting him use me in whatever capacity — even if just a little or not any way at all — in his Church. It is to not lord education or experience over anyone but to seek to lift up others as I interact with them. To encourage them. To quietly work behind the scenes when my flesh cries out to emerge into the spotlight.
A second area of life that is fed by the desires of the ego is in personal relationships — our marriages, our dating life, our family life, our neighbors and our friendships. The desire to prop oneself up when first meeting people is another way ego drives our life. When you first move into a new house, one good idea is to meet your new neighbors. When they ask you the inevitable question, “So, what do you do?” How do you respond?
In our “love relationships,” perhaps the desire for humility is more needed than in any other area. We, by our sin nature, will always want to seek the self — seeking our desires and wants from our partner — but it so often divides couples and creates conflict in the household. We want to be honored by our spouses — respected, esteemed, praised, preferred, etc. But to serve them selflessly, not anticipating reward from them? That’s extremely hard. But that’s the way of humility and following the example of Christ.
I’ll add another big “right” that our society says we should possess: to be heard. Being heard leads to marches and filibusters, church splits and divorces. It leads to us not resting until we have said everything we can say and, likely, are vindicated by the meeting of any demands. Yet Jesus was not only misheard but also misunderstood. His parables often hit his audience like a logic riddle or a puzzle. A pearl in a field? Mustard seeds? Huh? His words were even twisted by his critics and used against him. And when it came time to actually defend himself under interrogation, he kept silent. He defended God. He openly declared his messianic, royal and divine identity. But defending himself from accusation? Silence.
Of Crosses & Crowns
True humility involves the denial of one’s self — of one’s ego, their pride — in order to love another human being, to serve selflessly, to worship God in honesty, or to seek justice for another. Humility is the very heart of the Lord’s dictate, “If anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself, take up his cross daily, and follow me.” And it is the root of Paul’s statement, “I’ve been crucified with Christ, therefore I no longer live but it is Christ who lives in me.”
Humility involves the crucifixion of our ego’s wants and desires. It is the laying down of our rights in order for another to be exalted above us. For a co-worker to be promoted into the job we envy. For a colleague to get their name first on a research paper. To wake up in the middle of the night to feed the baby so that your exhausted spouse can get more rest.
But there is a flip side to humility found in the life of Jesus and the teachings of his apostles. It is this:
God rewards those who humble themselves before Him. Humility leads to exaltation. The first shall be last and the last shall be first. The cross is followed by the crown.
You should have the same attitude toward one another that Christ Jesus had … He humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death – even death on a cross! For this reason also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name… (Philippians 2)
Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you at the proper time. (1 Peter 5)
(Keep your) eyes on Jesus, the source and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that lay before Him endured a cross and despised the shame and has sat down at the right hand of God’s throne. (Hebrews 12:2)
Submit therefore to God. … Humble yourselves in the presence of the Lord, and He will exalt you. (James 4)
You and I can lay down our desires and crucify our ego knowing that God will reward our humility richly. When Jesus stood before Pontius Pilate (John 19:10-11), bound and bloody, the Roman governor asked rhetorically, “Do you not realize that I have the authority to free you?” Jesus put the leader in his place, “You would have NO authority at all if it wasn’t given to you from above.” Boom! It is God’s authority to raise up and cast down. It is His responsibility to judge pride and meekness, wisdom and folly. We usually only hear people’s words and see their actions. But God sees their hearts. He sees ours. He knows us. And He will always reward those who seek Him (Heb. 11:6).
The key to getting to the top is to seek the bottom. To give without reward. To listen before speaking. To forgive before lashing out in anger. All are tough to do, for they counter our ego-driven sinful desires, but they are the righteous way of God.
But such acts of humility are not without reward. Our world rewards those who seek the top — the ambitious, the prideful, the arrogant — those whom we usually follow, to be honest! But God rewards those who humble themselves before him, and before others. In Matthew 23, Jesus said, “Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.”
The Promise of Restoration
So, how do we endure, emotionally and spiritually, the humiliation of seeking humility? I noticed something neat in the first letter that Peter wrote. After he writes the poignant words, “Humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you at the proper time, casting all your anxiety on Him, because He cares for you,” he briefly writes about suffering and then writes this:
“After you have suffered for a little while, the God of all grace, who called you to His eternal glory in Christ, will Himself restore, confirm, strengthen and establish you.” (5:10)
Here is where the promise of God’s grace and restoration come into play. God will restore to you the elements you feel like you have lost in your humility. He will…
- Restore you. The Greek word here means, “to mend” as in mending a broken fishing net, something Peter would know all about! We will take a lot of flack as we follow Christ into humility, much like a bomber during the second would war. We might even find ourselves attacked by accusations or humiliated by our peers! But God restores those who are His — we who believe in His Son — and He will heal your wounds.
- Confirm you, both in His eyes and, I believe, the eyes of those around you. This is the coolest effect of humility. God upholds the righteous and lifts up the humble. He will confirm your integrity in the eyes of His faithful ones and add honor to your name. The world may think you are nothing but those who serve the Lord will see you as worthy of respect. They will listen, encourage and love you in an honest, holy way. Too often we think our world leaders produce the best sound bites. But listen closer to the things said by the humblest among us. I’ve found that they are worth listening to because they are following Christ and He validates their words.
- Strengthen you. It is not easy to lay down our pride. Enduring attacks, disrespect, being heard incorrectly, not being honored, etc. wears down our emotions. But if we turn to the Lord for strength, He will provide us with emotional and spiritual strength to endure. We will be mounted with wings like eagles, Isaiah calls it, so that we can soar. No believer can endure hardship without receiving strength from the Lord.
- Establish you. This is your reputation and your legacy. A humble person will not leave a bad legacy. God will exalt humble character as an example for others to follow.
Taking Action
Here are a few action items to consider as you seek humility before God on a daily basis.
1. Start your day with a prayer of humility. It doesn’t have to be a long, repetitive oracle like the Litany of Humility, just something simple. Starting your waking day on your knees before God is a great beginning to how to interact with the world, from your loved ones to complete strangers,
2. Seek to do one act of service for a loved one each day this week. Do not expect them to reward you and try to do it in private or in an unseen way. Do it as if you were serving Jesus Himself.
3. Practice the difficult-but-hugely-important discipline of saying, “I’m sorry.” Our mothers taught us to do this when we were young but so often we forget to do it as adults! To say, “I’m sorry” in sincerity is to act in humility. When you lay your wants and desires at the feet of Jesus, it becomes easier to ask for forgiveness from your brother or sister. You admit that you will become lesser so that they may increase. Your pride will be crucified with Christ so that reconciliation and restoration can commence.
Above all, put on Christ and seek to follow His humility! God the Father resurrected and then highly exalted Him. He will restore you, too, as you seek to follow His Son.
In humility,
Be God’s!
J.C. Newton 