‘For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted’ Luke 14:11 It is very easy to get carried away in our pride and glory but to be humbled and then be exalted by God Himself requires a lot of squeezing and pruning; it takes all of YOU.
Humility, as I defined in the previous post is to be modest or submissive. This is how we must be, no matter who we are or whatever position we hold. It may seem crazy at first to think of but when you really take time to understand what it really means to be humble then it becomes easier.
Here is list of scenarios where humility will be required:
- As a wife, believe it or not, you will need to be submissive to your husband (Colossians 3:18)
- When you are corrected, believe it or not it requires humbleness (Proverbs 15:32)
- When you decide to get to know who God is, it requires ALL THE HUMILITY that you have in you (Proverbs 15:33)
- When someone hurts you, be sure you need to be humble (Romans 12:14-21)
But the subject I really want to focus on is scenario 3. I love this scenario because I share a personal experience with it and I will also be bringing a biblical reference that is similar to this scenario.
When I decided to really get to know God, but to really leave my old habits, change my mind set, develop a fighting spirit and to really live for God, I had to sacrifice a lot and I mean physically, emotionally, mentally and financially. I was not joking around anymore, I had honestly just had enough of the constant mood swings, up and ‘down-ness’, the doubts, feeling sorry for myself and not just pushing to see a change; this was leading me to nowhere. I had to really search within me; to dig, to find the horrible things my physical eyes didn’t want me to see or my mind didn’t want to be bombarded by. I had to face them, it was not easy, but it was a price I was willing to pay. I will touch on three things God really required from me to sacrifice in order for me to really come to know Him for who He is which was my DOUBTS, PRIDE and EMOTIONS. I wrote these in capital letters because there was no working from Gods part as far as these three things were apparent in my life.
Quick tip-
When it comes to humility, most of the time it is not the outward things you do. It requires you, most times, to look inwardly, coming to a realisation and then repenting.
Then I had to ask myself WHY
Why did I have doubts?
-Because I was so used to relying on my own way of doing things and thought I needed no help, I was relying on feeling something when it came to God and not understanding that it is ALL BY FAITH (Romans 10:17). I was just allowing for the negative voice to overpower the voice of faith, which is to be weak minded.
Why was I proud?
-Because I didn’t want to seem weak, I didn’t want to accept that I was wrong and most importantly I didn’t want to face the fact that I had a lot of problems which I had ‘stuffed underneath the carpet’
Why was I so emotional?
-Simply because I would constantly feel sorry for myself and mainly because I had no spiritual foundation with God. When anything would happen, because I had no unlimited strength from God I would give up easily, feel sorry for myself and sulk like a big baby.
Where did all of that take me to? NOWHERE!
I am not saying that when I accepted to be humble to give these things up that I am now the most perfect person on earth, NO, but I can say with confidence now that my conscience is not heavy and I easily have access to the Strength I need daily.
Let’s take a biblical example, Saul, I’m not going to go into the history of Saul but what I will say is that he was a man strongly used by God to bring many to salvation. But going back to the statement at the beginning, it is really easy for anyone to get carried away in their pride and glory. Unfortunately this was his case. Saul allowed his title and his anointing from God through Samuel to deceive him into thinking he deserved all the glory. Saul even went ahead and built a monument statue of himself (like really? PRIDE). To fast forward, when Samuel came to Saul and asked him whether he had obeyed the instructions of God, Saul decided to lie and not be humble to tell the truth even though God had already told Samuel the whole truth. Saul still decided to lie because he feared the people and chose to obey their voice instead of God. Read more on 1st Samuel 15 vs 1 till the end.
To conclude, Saul was willing to hold onto his pride and lies just so that he can please the people but that decision cost him his anointing to be king of Israel and also it sabotaged his relationship with God. Why allow pride to impede your righteous walk with God?
Notice a hint of pride? Stop what you’re doing, have a conversation with God and ask for forgiveness. He awaits you.
Until then it is LOVE, PEACE AND ALL THE GOOD STUFF!
Guest Contributor – Sarah Ogilo
