Reflections on Humility

When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. ¹² For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known -- I Cor 13:11-12

When I was in my 30's in seminary I was, I realize now, quite beyond arrogant in my knowing what I thought.  I had literally ACHED to be 18 and then 21 and be a "real adult."  I turned 21 and really thought that I had assumed a position in life where I could control and run my life.  Into my 30's, and on into my 40's, I carried the unexamined assumption that I had become a man and was seeing clearly in the mirror and I was meant for saving the world.  It's embarrassing and laughable to see this admission come out of my fingertips onto the screen! I notice with considerable chagrin how I named my health blog -- healtheworld-mof.  I leave it named that now as a painful jabbing reminder to my ego of my youthful arrogance.


Fact now is that in my 50's, I look in the mirror and see nothing but the mud out of which God scooped me.  Rubbing the glass only smears and I am left with nothing but the power to ponder.  I had always not been able to make sense of the phrase, "fear of the Lord."  In Sunday School I had heard about nothing but the love of God, and to fear God just made no sense whatsoever.  I think my inability to see the "fear of the Lord" was a symptom of my lack of humility.  Humility is a space that, I think, is entered from the door where we have been stripped of our certainty and knowledge and have only God to rely on for getting through a day.  Not knowing what a day holds, trusting only in God to reveal it minute by minute, engenders a significant degree of silent reverent respect for what the Almighty can do.  Faith is holding on in spite of the fear of where it may go.