Contemplation #22
The Essential Ingredient of Faith
We enjoy our relationship with God through faith – a desperate trust in God born out of sober recognition of our personal poverty. Established with God by faith, we live out this relationship through love for God, and for His sake, we love others and creation. But what is the foundation of this faith which is essential to communion with God? Upon what is faith built? It is humility.
The arrogant trust in themselves, and cannot depend on another. Pride has no room to admit weakness. Wherever pride lurks in us, there we do not experience faith, for we are self-assured or at least unwilling to ask for the help we desperately need. What does God require? That we walk humbly with him. Out of humility faith grows as we put all of our confidence in God. Without faith it is impossible to please God; and without humility, we can never have faith.
Contemplation #23
Is it possible to be too humble? Certainly we can be falsely humble, of which there are two types: pretending to be meek and contrite when we are not, or acting humble by disowning what we should affirm. But can we be too humble?
As with any godly virtue, the problem is not with extremism, but corruption. We cannot be too loving or too faithful. We can be permissive and claim that we are loving, but we are not. We can act legalistically strict and call it faithfulness, but it is not. Neither can we be too humble. Confessing the depth of our own inadequacies, considering others better than ourselves, esteeming God as high and lifted up, being gentle and meek, and every other manifestation of humility cannot be taken to an extreme. Rather than worry about having gone too far, we should be wary of having stopped far short of what humility demands.
Contemplation #24
Is God humble?
Our first reaction to this question might be to say that we are to be humble, but not so God. However, the incarnation of God in being born of Mary shows us the humility of God, not only in Jesus as the baby on earth, but of God in heaven in willingly taking on human form. When God considers our desperate and pitiful condition from his lofty and high place, he is being humble. When God does what is for our good and yet it causes him pain, as his love for us as expressed in the cross, we see the attribute of humility. When God is gentle and kind, revealing himself in a constrained way so that his presence does not slay us all, he is being humble.
The only way in which our humility differs from God’s is that when in humility both God and we confess what is true, he rightly declares his holiness and we admit our sinfulness. But this difference is not about humility itself, but in what we do out of our humility. The humility of God teaches as to live honestly with who we are, and to consider first the needs of others.
The Essential Ingredient of Faith
We enjoy our relationship with God through faith – a desperate trust in God born out of sober recognition of our personal poverty. Established with God by faith, we live out this relationship through love for God, and for His sake, we love others and creation. But what is the foundation of this faith which is essential to communion with God? Upon what is faith built? It is humility.
The arrogant trust in themselves, and cannot depend on another. Pride has no room to admit weakness. Wherever pride lurks in us, there we do not experience faith, for we are self-assured or at least unwilling to ask for the help we desperately need. What does God require? That we walk humbly with him. Out of humility faith grows as we put all of our confidence in God. Without faith it is impossible to please God; and without humility, we can never have faith.
Contemplation #23
Is it possible to be too humble? Certainly we can be falsely humble, of which there are two types: pretending to be meek and contrite when we are not, or acting humble by disowning what we should affirm. But can we be too humble?
As with any godly virtue, the problem is not with extremism, but corruption. We cannot be too loving or too faithful. We can be permissive and claim that we are loving, but we are not. We can act legalistically strict and call it faithfulness, but it is not. Neither can we be too humble. Confessing the depth of our own inadequacies, considering others better than ourselves, esteeming God as high and lifted up, being gentle and meek, and every other manifestation of humility cannot be taken to an extreme. Rather than worry about having gone too far, we should be wary of having stopped far short of what humility demands.
Contemplation #24
Is God humble?
Our first reaction to this question might be to say that we are to be humble, but not so God. However, the incarnation of God in being born of Mary shows us the humility of God, not only in Jesus as the baby on earth, but of God in heaven in willingly taking on human form. When God considers our desperate and pitiful condition from his lofty and high place, he is being humble. When God does what is for our good and yet it causes him pain, as his love for us as expressed in the cross, we see the attribute of humility. When God is gentle and kind, revealing himself in a constrained way so that his presence does not slay us all, he is being humble.
The only way in which our humility differs from God’s is that when in humility both God and we confess what is true, he rightly declares his holiness and we admit our sinfulness. But this difference is not about humility itself, but in what we do out of our humility. The humility of God teaches as to live honestly with who we are, and to consider first the needs of others.
posted by Greg at 2:13 PM
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