Humility has roots…
In the Gospel of John, chapter 13, we come to the account of Jesus humbling himself to wash his disciples’ feet. Before he got up from the table, disrobed and stooped to the floor, something was resolute in his heart.
He knew…
Twice in this account John uses the phrase “Jesus knew” to describe his disposition. What did he know?
“Jesus knew” that his hour had come to leave this world and return to the Father.
“Jesus knew” that the Father had given him authority over everything and that he had come from God.
As I said, humility has roots. There is only so much you can do to will yourself to be humble. You can muster up enough will power say the right thing and treat people the right way while still being a wreck inside. We celebrate someone with our words, but inside we are upset it wasn’t us receiving the affection, admiration and affirmation. We try to take the less important seat, but inside we are disappointed we haven’t been offered the more important seat. Someone offers us a complimentary “job well done” and we utter the appropriate platitude “it was all Jesus”. All the while we feed off the compliments as a source of validation and allow our confidence to become dependent upon them.
Legitimate humility has roots. (Give John 13:1-7 a read)
When we “know” our God designed purpose…
When we “know” God’s timing is best…
When we “know” our authority in God…
When we “know” our identity in God…
These roots are counter intuitive. We tend to think humility is derived from perceiving our deficiency, our impoverishment, our lack. But that is impossible for Jesus because he lacks no good thing. For many, the brand of humility employed more closely resembles self-degradation than the holy expression of a redeemed child of God. If Jesus is our model, we must take his cues in the arena of humility. Humility is not derived from perceiving our lack, but from knowing our legitimacy. How could the king of all kings feel so comfortable posturing himself lower than his fishermen and tax collecting disciples? Because he was validated by what he knew, not by what others perceived. We will never humble ourselves before people if we are fighting for legitimacy. It is easy to humble ourselves when we “know” we are legitimate. We will fall short of sufficient humility if we don’t trust God’s timing, because we will push ourselves to the front of the line out of fear of wasted or lost time. Humility is fleeting for the one who is trying so hard to be someone special because of a deficiency of the revelation that he is already a son.
The Kingdom of God is upside down, humility comes from confidence, security and “knowing”.
Instead of warring against yourself to be humble, sink yourself into “knowing”.
Humility has roots.