A Guide to Gaining Humility

It is bold to publish a guide to gaining humility. Surely there are 600 page books even from Christian writers on this topic.

The best school is still at the foot of Jesus’ Cross. This Cross is the only place where I can see I am a horrible sinner, and see I am deeply loved all at the same time. I also wrote about this at Abiding at the Cross to Save Me Now.

At the Cross, perfect mercy, perfect judgement, perfect grace, perfect truth are all together in one place for me.  I think it is Brother Lawrence who first helped me see this. I believe he said he lived trying to always keep the Cross before him.

At the Cross I have no ability to be proud. I have no inkle of wanting to prove myself. I have no taste of depression or sense of worthlessness. How else could I be at once perfectly harshly judged and at the same moment be completely loved.

When I can feel that place, I almost always cry. It is such a beautiful place, and I am not there enough. I feel sorrow and joy at the same time. It is an amazing place where I am naked and without shame.

Experience as a Guide to Gaining Humility

I have been reading the Bible daily more than 40 years. That does not mean a continual path of closeness. Often it is quite dry and ups and downs are the common experience I have.

When I was 26, I discovered that I could not feel and that God wanted me to feel. I asked God to fix me and he did not. Day by day my doubt in God grew. Finally, I could hardly read the Bible as God seemed helplessly weak.  God reached out to me in that time when I was running from him. I read Jesus entry into Jerusalem when they put their cloaks on the ground and suddenly could sense the deep holiness of God like never before. God was holy — even his mule needed to be far from ‘sin’.

Finally, I found I could always feel, but I did not believe it. I just needed to believe and spent two years blaming God.

That is my clearest salvation experience as do not remember coming to faith at age 11. at 28 I learned how holy and loving is God and how sinful I am. Without this, I think we cannot know what we are saved from to be moved at the Cross. Many people do not have such a struggle to find this, but in my case it took two years of error to see how deep a sinner I am. We must never lose our wonder of the Cross. God help us to find all you have for us at the Cross.

For at the Cross, we can gain a humility that is neither proud nor depressed. We can see ourselves just as God sees us, and He knows us and loves us best.