Humility in Daily Life- Chapter 6

HUMILITY

How do the truths in this chapter apply to your personal spiritual life?

How do the truths in this chapter apply to your leadership role within Classical Conversations?

What parallels in literature do you see that apply or reference these same truths from this chapter?

CHAPTER SIX

Humility in Daily Life

My spiritual life

One aspect I had opportunity to grow in when I was ill for an extended time was long-suffering. I hadn’t even noticed ‘long-suffering’ to be a fruit of the Spirit until I had been sick a couple of years. I grew because I was forced, by pain, to be subject to suffering without relief, and to accept help, continually, without having anything to return. This humbled me greatly. There were many times I “accepted” it begrudgingly (in my inner spirit) and with constant anticipation of when I’d be able to return the favor to those helping me. But then the ways I (and my family) was helped became too bountiful, too generous, and too enormous for me to ever repay the debt. I had to learn to accept my station and to live humbly within it. By the grace of God, I grew in ability, else I would have become bitter and tired and worthless.

Now that I have my faculties returned, and am in relative health and strength, I find my need for humility different and the same. The old self that does things in my own strength still strives for perfection at times. I’m a recovering perfectionist. And I long for full healing from it. It keeps me always measuring myself and others, and it has nothing righteous to say about my worth before God or man.

My need for humility is the same. My old self sometimes measured myself above, and the sick, weak self measured below, and both were falsehoods. Both were from the enemy. I reject them both, and find myself now in desperate need of my one true place and station, a slave of my King, and a daughter in need of grace. Come, humility, come.

Leadership within CC

I think this scripture, from the preface of the chapter, sums up the proper position of my heart and leadership in CC (and everyday life):

For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. – 1 John 4:20

All the leadership skills and organizational prowess in the world are nothing without humility, love, gentleness, compassion, kindness, and long-suffering. Every day. Every person. No exceptions.

Literature

I love the writings of Amy Carmichael. For years I read her work unaware of the great suffering she endured the last portion of her life. Now that I know, I receive something else altogether when I read her. This chapter from a devotional, I Come Quietly to Meet You, has stayed with me as whispers of humility.

Come Forth As Gold

Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has yet to been made known. But we know that when he appears we will be like him, for we shall see him as he is. Everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself, just as he is pure.

 – 1 John 3:2-3

Through these months, acceptance has been a word of liberty and victory and peace to me. But it has never meant acquiescence in illness, as though evil circumstances were from Him who delights to deck His servants with health.

But it did mean contentment with unexplained. Neither Job nor Paul ever knew (so far as we know) why prayer for relief was answered as it was- with long, initial silence. But I think they must now stand in awe and joy, as they meet others in the heavenly country who were strengthened and comforted by their patience and courage. They must stand in awe, too, as they understand now the Father’s thoughts of peace toward them.

Hardly a life goes deep but has tragedy somewhere in it. What would such people do without Job? And who could spare from the soul’s hidden history the great words spoken to the Apostle Paul: “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9). Such words lead straight to a land where there is gold, and the gold of that land is good.

Gold- the word recalls Job’s affirmation: “But he knows the way that I take; when he has tested me, I will come forth as gold” (Job 23:10). And it recalls the ringing words of the Apostle Peter: “[All kinds of trials come] so that your faith- of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by grief- may be proved genuine” (1 Peter 1:7). And it brings the quiet words in Malachi: “He will set as a refiner and purifier of silver…” (Malachi 3:3).

(I have often thanked God that the word there is not gold but silver, an important shift, I think. Silver is of little account here in the Far East, and I often feel more like silver than gold.)

The picture of the Refiner is straight from Eastern life. The Eastern goldsmith sits on the floor by his crucible. For me, at least, it is not hard to know why the heavenly Refiner has to sit so long. The heart knows its own dross.

“How do you know how long to sit and wait? How do you know when it is purified?” we asked our village goldsmith.

“When I can see my face in it,” he replied.

Blessed by the love that never wearies, never gives up hope that, even in such poor metal our Father may at last see the reflection of His face.

MY FATHER, IF YOU are working into me some traits I would not have chosen to work in myself (for example, patience!), then I ask for your grace to carry me through.

“Purify” me of everything but perfect acceptance in you…

Thank you, Lord, for Amy Carmichael’s heart and words. Thank you for refining me by the way of acceptance, which breathes humility.