Tag Archives: humility

stunning realization

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I have recently gone through (and am still enduring) a very humiliating experience.

While praying the other night, I believe the Holy Spirit opened up my eyes to see it in a whole new light:

Wow, Jesus, I just LOVE the way that You handled the Pharisees.  You are so smart and stunning and clever, and You just OWNED them!

It’s interesting to me that those moments– the ones when You seemed most powerful– would not end up being the cornerstone events of history.  Instead it was the CROSS that would– the moment you looked weakest, most defeated, completely ashamed, and beneath the feet of the Pharisees.

HELP ME TO REMEMBER THIS!  These days may end up being the days that define me.  That is startling a little.  God, give me grace, poise, maturity, integrity, favor as I undergo this humiliating experience.  God let me use this time to IDENTIFY with Your Son.

Jesus, my shame is nothing compared to what You went through, and yet You endured it sinlessly.  Give me the strength to do likewise.  Make me humble.  How could I forget that it is You who are the Humble Servant?  This whole experience may serve to make me LIKE YOU.

You understand my feelings even better and more deeply than I do.  Let me be worthy of this humiliation.

Humilitas

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Last fall, I had the priviledge of hearing John Dickson speak at the Global Leadership Summit.  Dickson is the author of the book Humilitas, a book about humility in leadership.  After hearing him speak, I purchased the book and read the entire thing.  It was brilliant.

Dickson, for his thesis for his Ph.D. in history, set out to find the origin of humility.  The findings were incredible.  Long ago, humility was looked down upon– but now it is a virtue society praises.  What happened to force such a change?  Dickson’s conclusion was the cross of Christ.

Before the cross, the thought was that humility was a showing of weakness.  When Jesus Christ was crucified, the early church had to look on the cross and say, “This is what humility looks like.  I need to either reconcile it with what I currently believe– that humility is weakness– or I need to change my thoughts about humility.”  And now, over 2000 years later, the world looks on humility as a lovely and beautiful thing.

The cross.  Oh how I love it, that history-altering moment in time.