Have you ever wondered what it really means to be humble? How does a truly humble person look and act? How do I respond when someone publicly compliments me on something I have done? What are my actions and emotions when confronted by a co-worker or colleague with a mistake I have made? How do I react when my spouse or someone close to me says something that hurts or offends me?

I am moved by Andrew Murray’s take on humility: “Man’s simple consent to let God be all, and to surrender himself to God’s working alone.” As an apprentice of Jesus, we are called to live a life centred in recognition that everything we have and all that we are has been given us by God. The humility and sense of nothingness that arises from this joyful ‘laying down of self’ is not something that God can simply impart to us (’Lord, grant me humility’), and it is not something that we ‘bring’ to him. It just is. It is the natural order of creation. The lives of humility and meekness to which we are called by Jesus are the only natural response to our simple acknowledgement of our position in God’s creation and our willingness to yield authority to God.

The depth of this profound truth is easily missed. Many of us have been followers of Jesus for several years. Perhaps like me, you have known the Lord for a long time and are only just beginning to realize that the meekness and ‘lowliness of heart’ spoken of by Jesus (Matt. 11:29) is meant to be a distinguishing feature of a disciple.

Humility does not often come naturally. Like most virtues, it must be desired, learned, and practiced. An effective practice to learn humility might be to spend time with a Christian who you feel models Christ-like humility. We might also spend time in meditation on the very clear and numerous lessons Jesus gave his disciples on humility. You could also search out some of the devotional classics that Christians have been encouraged by over the centuries, and learn from the spiritual ‘greats’.

“Is it any wonder that the Christian life is so often feeble and fruitless, when the very root of the Christ-life is neglected, is unknown? Is it any wonder that the joy of salvation is so little felt, when the one thing in which Christ found it and brings it is so little sought? We must seek a humility that rests in nothing less than the end and death of self; that gives up all the honor of men, as Jesus did, to seek the honor that comes from God alone; that absolutely makes and considers itself nothing so that God may be all, so that the Lord alone may be exalted.”

    -Andrew Murray, Humility, p. 27.

Are you dissatisfied with your depth of relationship with Jesus? Do you reflect on your life and wonder if you are being effective as a disciple, and if God is actually ‘using’ you? Thank the Lord he has given you this dissatisfaction (instead of lukewarm apathy) with the present state of things, and ask him to teach you humility. Begin by deciding to know nothing more than Christ and the fellowship of sharing in his suffering. Don’t be discouraged when you find this difficult. Ask the Lord to show you the areas of your life over which you have firm control and have not surrendered to ‘God’s working alone’. Be prepared to no longer demand that people treat you as you think you deserve to be treated.

For Further Study/Meditation: Gen 3:5; Phil 2:5-9; Col 2:7, 19; Luke 22:27.

Resource:
Humility, by Andrew Murray. He ministered in the towns and villages of Africa for many years, and is widely known for his prolific pastoral writings and publications. He lived from 1828-1917.

“Apologetics, it seems [from the 'emergent' philosophy/trend], is dead.  But I’m not buying it—at least, not completely.  I’ll buy the fact that the dictionary definition of apologetics might have fallen on hard times—using formal logic, a systematic, argumentative discourse offering positive proof for or defences of Christianity.  It is true that people are tired of the worst forms of apologetics—being sold, spun, and jerked around by selective logic.  But that doesn’t mean no one cares to know what is real, true, and valid.  It means that today, many but not all, people access truth and reality in ways that don’t match up with formal apologetics.  A new form of apology, a new defence and explanation, is emerging.  Witnessing a God-inspired, consistent life of creative goodness is, in my view, the new apologetic.

I suggest that creatively doing good for others is effective because lots of people today are not asking, ‘Is this true?’  Rather, they tend to ask, ‘Is it real, genuine, and making a difference in your life?  Are you becoming a better person because of your faith and the presence of God in your life?  Do others experience you and your pursuit of religion as good for them?’  Seekers, at least those paying attention, have known too many people in their families, at work, or around their neighbourhoods who become worse as they pursue religion.  Such people often become the office nag, the quarrelling know-it-all, or the judgemental, gossipy neighbour.

Often apologetics is believed to fit into a similar pushy, bossy mold.  This doesn’t mean truth is irrelevant, or that Christian doctrine is neither here nor there, but people access those things in different ways today than they have in the last few decades.  And they often do so in a different order than might be expected.  Often seeing that Christianity works, they then begin to look into the various truths associated with Christianity.”

This passage stirs something deep in me…for a long while I have wrestled with two aspects of the life of an apprentice of Jesus that I have seen as separate and unrelated: spiritual formation and evangelism. I now see a clear link between them.

As we are continually, measurably transformed into Christlikeness and seek to live for the sake of others, this is in itself a primary form of evangelism—as primary as being ready to ‘give a defense/explanation’ of the gospel in classical apologetics style. People today, quite rightly, want to see something genuine and authentic about the positive benefits now of being a Christian. If we focus on becoming the kind of person who displays the power and freedom of the transformed life of an apprentice of Jesus, evangelism then becomes simply an expression of living our lives.

As an ‘evangelical’, when I think of evangelism I move immediately to the apologetics framework (which I believe is of value), but emphasise less perhaps why Christianity matters, and do not focus on the power of a genuinely transformed life affecting those around me.

Spiritual formation, then, or intentional apprenticeship to Jesus and growth in Christlikeness, is inextricably linked to sustainable evangelism. This is a game-changer for me. Both are inherently of value, and worth intentionally practicing, but I now see them as complementary parts of my walk with Jesus and not separate or fragmented.

In Luke 10:38-42, Mary and Martha have Jesus over for dinner and we see Jesus provide us with an extraordinary insight into the way He prioritises everyday and ‘ordinary’ life.

In this story, I resonate deeply with Martha, who could see only the work to be done in front of her—and went and did it. A statement with profound implications for how I live my life in the everyday is Jesus’ response to her: “Martha, Martha…you are worried about so many things; but only one thing is necessary, and Mary has chosen it.”

I struggle with Jesus’ words in this story…when I am at a period in my life full of work and commitments with every half hour of the day scheduled for something, my natural inclination in reading this story is to say ‘Lazy Mary…at least Martha is getting the work done.’

At other times, like now, I am stirred by the Lord’s gentle hand on my shoulder, speaking right to the heart of the matter—Andy, Andy, you are worried about so many things…but only one thing is necessary…’.

I struggle with the notion that, in my eyes, Martha is doing the ‘real’ work, but in Jesus’ eyes, it is Mary who has her priorities straight. Can spending time with Jesus be ‘real work’?

This notion of what makes up ‘reality’, or ‘real work’ that has deep implications my life. In the Christian life, our reality is our calling to have one foot planted in the natural world, and one foot planted in the supernatural. It is in the balance, or the tension of these two realities that the follower of Jesus lives.

Monastics from the Orthodox stream of Christianity call these ‘many things’ that distract logismoi, or white noise. They are “a train of thoughts that befog and pollute the mind so that bit by bit we move from reality to fantasy”, where, in this instance reality = the tension of living in both the natural and supernatural worlds, and fantasy = the soul-killing belief that it is only our effort, our ‘work’, getting our tasks accomplished that really matters.

Jesus, teach me that spending time with you and prayer is real work.

“‘As for where I am going,’ said Frodo, ‘it would be difficult to give that away, for I have no clear idea myself, yet.’

‘…you must go,’ said Gandalf, ‘or at least set out, either North, South, West, or East—and the direction should certainly not be known.’

‘I have been so taken up with the thoughts of leaving Bag End, and of saying farewell, that I have never considered the direction,’ said Frodo. ‘For where am I to go? And by what shall I steer? What is to be my quest? Bilbo went to find a treasure, there and back again; but I go to lose one, and not return, as far as I can see.’

‘But you cannot see very far,’ said Gandalf. ‘Neither can I. It may be your task to find the Cracks of Doom, but that quest may be for others: I do not know.’”

This small conversation between Frodo and Gandalf in The Lord of the Rings gives me great peace—in it I hear the echoes of my own life story as a follower of Jesus. Jesus leads me usually with a nudge out the door—the direction I am to take is not crystal clear, I do not have clarity on exactly what I am to do and how to do it. But I sense in my heart that the Lord desires me to move, now. And so I obey—trusting that as I am moving, he will show me the next step.

The complete fulfilment of my work with Jesus in the Kingdom of God may be for someone else to complete, or to take further, but I am not called to be concerned with the overall plan, or end game—I am learning that it must be enough for me to simply know the next step, and to trust that Jesus will show me where and when to take the step after that.

I often hear people speak with great confidence that the Lord told them to do this, or led them to do that—and I wonder at their confidence. My experience of hearing God’s voice and moving in obedience is one of much less certainty. I am learning to have confidence not in my ability to hear God’s voice, but in God’s ability to get his point across to me when he needs to.

I find it difficult to remain focussed on prayer at times, and find it useful to look to the giants of the faith in the past for their lessons learned on how to live a life of prayer. The unknown 14^th century author of The Cloud of Unknowing writes:

“Since you have asked me how you should control your feelings when you are praying, let me give you the best answer I can.

Let me start by saying that the best thing you can do when you start to pray, however long or short your time of prayer is to be, is to tell yourself, and mean it, that you are going to die at the end of your prayer. I am not joking when I tell you this: just think how impossible it is to tell yourself…that you are certain of living longer than the time your prayer takes.

…you will see that is quite safe to tell yourself that you are going to die, and I advise you to do so. If you do, you will find that the combination of your general sense of your own unworthiness combined with this special feeling of how short a time you have left to make a firm purpose of amendment, will concentrate your mind wonderfully on a proper fear of the Lord.

You will find this feeling taking real hold of your heart, unless (which God forbid), you manage to coax and cajole your false heart of flesh with the false security that you are going to live longer. It may well be that you are going to live beyond the time of your prayer, but it is always a false comfort to promise yourself that this will be the case and to persuade your heart to rely on it. This is because only God can know the truth of the matter, and all you can do is rely blindly on his will, without having any certainty beyond this for a moment, for the time is takes to blink an eye.”

I will give this a try.

“Albert Camus said, ‘Man’s first faculty is forgetting.’ Ingratitude and forgetfulness are ultimately moral rather than mental; they are the direct expression of sin. No culture has nourished such tendencies as consistently as ours. We pride ourselves on autonomous, self-created, and freestanding. A modern world with no need of God produces a modern people with no sense of gratitude.”

I agree with the first and last thoughts, although I must say I never thought I’d have such heart agreement with a French Existentialist like Camus. I think the popular notion (here, expressed by the eminent Os Guinness) that our present day culture is somehow ‘worse’ than previous generations, or that we are tending to more and more distance from God is slightly off-center—when I read Isaiah, for example, I do not see any less of a tendency in Hebrew culture from 3000 years ago to forget God than I do in modern Australian or American culture.

When Oswald Chambers and his wife were asked how they carry on their work in the Kingdom, they replied, ‘well, we just trust God, and do the next thing in front of us.’

A profound truth for me, now.

As a leader and a manager, I pray for our projects and people, but don’t just ask God for the next step—I ask for the whole plan. I want the plan, not just the next step…because I want certainty.

I am learning that certainty is something the Lord is not willing to give—and that this, while a significant challenge for me, is a gift.

Trust God, and do the next thing.

“And this is my prayer, that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight…”

I am stirred by the thought that it is at least partly through having love in increasing measure that we begin to see clearly into a matter.

The word ‘insight’ here is translated from the Greek word aesthesis, and in this context means “having the capacity to perceive clearly and hence to understand the real nature of something”. The word ‘love’ in the original Greek is agape, and means “having love for someone or something based on sincere appreciation or high regard.”

What Paul says here is a deep truth that has potentially profound implications for how one views the path to wisdom and discernment.

I try to imagine one of my university professors pausing in the midst of a lecture on how to solve third order differential equations and saying, ‘now, you know the best way to get the root of this equation is to focus yourself on selfless love for others’, and I smile.

Certainly it is true in my own life that I begin to view life situations and people differently when I am not overly task-focussed or self-focussed—when I am filled with a love for them, everything changes. Including, perhaps most importantly, my perspective.

It is not until now that I have considered that seeing them ‘differently’ (when I am filled with love vs. what’s next on my Outlook calendar) may actually be seeing them more clearly or completely.

If I can only begin to see into the true nature of a matter, or a person’s need when I am operating from a paradigm of agape love, the critical question to begin actualizing this truth is what can I do to cultivate this love for others, as a complementary action to God’s working in me?

Calling is the truth that God calls us to himself so decisively that everything we are, everything we do, and everything we have is invested with a special devotion, dynamism, and direction lived out as a response to his summons and service…

…our primary calling as followers of Christ is by him, to him, and for him. We are called first and foremost to Someone, not to something.

This is illuminated as I reflect on Phil 1:9-11: “This is my prayer that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight…to the glory and praise of God.”

It is all for his glory—all of it. As a created being, I exist primarily to glorify and to worship the Creator—this is my chief end, or telos.

This is not simply abstract theology to me—it is profoundly practical and applicable to my everyday life.

If my goal is to glorify God in all that I do, rather than subtly seeking my own advancement or self promotion, it will impact my conversations, the stories I tell to others, my recreation, my descriptions of mine or other’s performance, who and why I criticise, and the education and training I seek.

I am not sure I am ready, or capable to fully confront this tendency in me to self-promotion vs. God-promotion.

Anders Ericsson founded the idea of ‘deliberate practice’. Deliberate practice, whether it’s applied to sport, or business, or the arts, begins in the brain. This isn’t a child doing an hour of piano scales every day while imagining the fun they will have afterwards. Instead, what makes someone spectacular in their field–and keeps them there–is training via a kind of focused, repetitive practice in which the subject is always monitoring his or her performance, correcting, experimenting, listening to immediate and constant feedback, and always pushing beyond what has already been achieved.

In May 2006, “Freakonomics” authors Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner wrote a piece about his work in The New York Times. Titled ‘A Star is Made’, it caused a furore. The notion that the stars of sport, arts, business and politics, the Bill Gates, Tiger Woods and Vladimir Ashkenazy icons of the world, are just like you and me–except they’ve applied themselves–outraged people more used to the idea that the great performers are born with special abilities.

I suspect that for anyone seriously involved in sport, academics, or business, this is not a surprise. It is my experience that I get better at a certain activity by being intentional about it—practice, feedback/coaching, refinement of my technique, having a goal, and more practice.

For example, I used to be a terrible swimmer. When I decided a few years ago to give triathlons a go, I knew that swimming would be my Achilles heel—I was a really terrible swimmer. My method was straightforward:  I began to swim regularly. Knowing that it can’t be right to swim backward when you’re trying to swim forward, I also enrolled in swim lessons where, among other tools, the coach studied my stroke by taking underwater video footage and analysing it with me. I then did drills, isolating one element of my stroke (such as brushing my fingertips over the surface of the water during stroke recovery) and doing laps just focusing on this part of the stroke.

It was through this intentional practice and constant feedback that I slowly began to swim forward more often than I swam backward. I am pleased to say that in the last three years I have significantly improved my speed in the water (especially when compared to going backwards!).

I have noticed in the churches I have attended that this principle of intentional practice, or deliberate practice is not a part of the vocabulary or mission. While most pastors I know commonly emphasise the need to pray and read the Bible, and uncommonly will delve deeper into the need to practice common spiritual exercises such as fasting and solitude, the motivation given is ‘because you should do it’, rather than ‘because it is an essential part of your training into Christlikeness‘.

I believe that if those who have made a decision to apprentice themselves to Jesus were to view the notion of deliberate practice discussed above as a parallel concept to Paul’s exhortation to Timothy in 1 Tim 4:7-8 to ‘…train yourself to be godly. For physical training is of some value, godliness has value for all things…’, we would experience a revolution of spiritual growth.

I believe it would also begin to answer the question I have been hearing from practicing Christians with greater frequency in the last few years–Why do I still struggle in the same areas of my life?  Why do I not seem to have grown in this area of my life in the last ten years?

The point that Jesus has been teaching me in the last few years is that like improvement in sport, running a successful business, or becoming a virtuoso on the violin, spiritual growth is not accidental—it comes about by deliberate and intentional practice, through God’s grace.