The Paradoxical Power of Humility

Humility doesn’t makes sense in our world. Humility calls for you to be courteous, respectful and patient in a world that is shrill, disrespectful and intolerant. So to be humble is to be unreasonable. Humility goes against the grain of reason because this virtue compels you to not think about yourself in a world that is obsessed with itself.

Go against the grain. Place a value on people over perceptions, responsibility over immaturity and personal dignity over personal drive. Humility is understanding you don’t need the attention. It’s putting others first. It’s encouraging others to believe bigger and become better. It is living in the enjoyment of life that comes when others around you are thriving.

True humility means looking out for the interests of the collective good over your own personal gain. It’s considering others better than yourself and other’s needs bigger than your own.

Humility is not about denying your strengths but embracing your weaknesses. It’s discovering there are great parts about you along with your flaws. The more honest you are about your strengths and weaknesses, the more humble you will become.

Humility is not thinking less of me, but thinking more of God. The more you discover God’s love for you, the more grateful you will be for a life saved by grace and for receiving grace without earning it. Humility compels you to live a life of confidence in God and not in yourself. It allows you to accept your own failures. It connects all your blessings back to God and celebrates all your successes because of God.

The more comfortable I am with being me, the more I don’t need others to give me their approval. I draw less attention to myself and give more attention to others.

Humility is security. It’s saying you don’t have to be the loudest, the brightest or the biggest in the room. Humility says, I get to serve you. Insecurity says, I have to impress you. Humility makes your life less about appearances to others and more about the advancement of others.

Humility compels you to surrender and make choices that are centered on the advancement of the mission instead of being clouded by obsession over your own name. A humble person is driven to develop others and is not threatened by others. It’s the difference between selfish ambition and Godly ambition.

The result of pride is resistance against God. The result of humility is acceptance from God. Grace is the ultimate expression of God’s acceptance and favor in a person’s life. It gives anyone who surrenders to it a supernatural confidence. It is a confidence that with God, you can do anything for anyone. A humble person is confident in the grace that who they are and what they do is dependent on who God is and what God does.

Don’t mistake confidence for arrogance. Arrogance is endorsing what has been achieved through your own efforts, but confidence is celebrating what has been accomplished through God’s.

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Alan Pastian
Alan Pastian

Alan Pastian is a campus pastor at River Valley Church in Apple Valley, Minnesota, a 2018 Outreach 100 church (No. 81 Fastest-Growing, No. 46 Largest).

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