Proverbs 18:1-12
Yesterday I was asked who my hero was as a child. There were a lot of people that I wanted to emulate and be but most of them were celebrities of some kind. In fact, at a young age most of them were baseball players. One in particular was a man named George Brett. For those of you that are KC Royals fans, you will recognize that name as one of, if not the best players to ever wear the Royals uniforms. There were others though like Kevin Seitzer, Buddy Biancalana(I think I just liked his name), Willie Wilson, Cal Ripken Jr, Danny Manning(Basketball). The commonality with all of these were that they had a skill that I wanted to have.
However, something changed as I became an adult and the people that I admired and wanted to be like most were not the celebrities that were out of my circle and touch. How about you? When you think about the people that you admire the most, the ones that you wish you could be like, who is it that comes to your mind. For me, it is more of an attribute than it is a skill. I bet it is for you too even if you don’t realize it.
Proverbs 18:12 says,
Before his downfall a person’s heart is proud, but humility comes before honor. (CSB)
The people that I gravitate to, the people that I honor the most are those that humility exudes from every fiber. The really ironic thing is that those that come to mind, according to the world’s standards would have every right to be haughty or proud of who they are and what they have accomplished in life, yet they have chosen the humble path.
What is it that makes them this way? I feel there are a couple of reasons. Those individuals who are in my mind as I write this all share the same qualities. The first being gratitude. They are grateful for everything, what they have, who is in their lives, what they have been given, and the list goes on and on. Holocaust Survivor Elie Wiesel once said, “To learn means to accept the postulate that life did not begin at my birth. Others have been there before me, and I walk in their footsteps.” Gratitude comes not from a sense of look what I have but look what I have been given despite who I am.
How do people come to this conclusion? They understand their brokenness in comparison to God. When we come to grips with how broken we are, we realize all that we have been given, and gratitude no longer becomes something we have to intently focus on showing but it is who we are.
Consider Christ, if there was ever someone who had every right to not be humble it would have been Him. Jesus voluntarily came down to Earth, He willingly went to the cross, taking the nails through His hands and feet, the beating and scourging that should have been ours. The only person in human history to be completely innocent and forgoing that perfection took on our imperfection. Understanding our standing before the cross of Christ causes our realization of just how broken we are, which leads us to gratitude for what we have been given.
This is where true humility comes from. An understanding of how broken we are and the gratitude that the Creator of all would care enough to do something about it. Understand this and become the humble person you should be.
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