Progress, Perspective, and Humility

Success or progress can lead to the greatest failure, which is pride.  Conversely, reflecting on the yet unattained coupled with a brutal confrontation or assessment of individual and organizational weaknesses leads to the greatest success, HUMILITY.

While we’ve made much progress, I am less impressed with what we’ve accomplished and more concerned about what God desires from us organizationally and, as a group of people, what He would desire for us individually.  While grateful for our progress, I am burdened by what remains undone and unaccomplished.

Our culture doesn’t promote or value humility.  Quite the opposite, it seems to promote self-aggrandizement and promotion.  We live in a “selfie age” that tempts building one’s brand through narcissistic and self-centered obsession. 

David Brooks, author of The Road to Character, writes, “Humility is the greatest virtue.  Humility is having an accurate assessment of your nature and your place in the cosmos.  Humility is the awareness that you are an underdog in the struggle against your weakness…the awareness that your talents alone are inadequate to the tasks that have been assigned to you.”

“He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, to love kindness, and walk humbly with your God?”
- Micah 6:8

Immanuel Kant’s famous quote, “Out of the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing was ever made,” reminds me of something Dr. Roy Fish said that has stuck with me through the years.  Dr. Fish suggested that “God can hit straight licks with some pretty crooked sticks.”   He was referring to the fact that we are both splendidly endowed, created in God’s image, yet deeply flawed given our fallen nature.  Our Christian pilgrimage should be governed by a constant awareness of both realities concentrating on the mortification of one and the pursuit and devotion to the other.  What does that require?  In a word – humility.

I’ll end where I began.  When I prepared to write, I pulled my files and read several years, which gave testimony to PROGRESS.  I experienced momentary feelings of pride – kind of a “look at all we’ve accomplished” moment.  God immediately corrected me by re-establishing PERSPECTIVE.  God opposes pride but gives grace to the humble.  People and organizations driven by HUMILITY engage themselves and their efforts to magnify God through the Spirit-filled exercise of their giftings while at the same time battling and defeating the weaknesses and frailties of their flesh. The goal?  To become strong in weak areas and to live a Micah 6:8 life – to walk and work humbly with our God.

Bart McDonald | SBTF Executive Director