Thoughts on What I'm Learning

I read a wonderful article from Christianity Today last night entitled Lessons From an Usher by Carolyn Arends.   The article speaks to lessons the author learned about humility from a committed usher at her church.   The story itself is beautiful, but what spoke to me most was this take on humility (emphasis mine):

"Richard Foster defines humility not as a 'less-than' type of self-abasement, but as an ability to "live as close to the truth as possible:  the truth about ourselves, the truth about others, the truth about the world in which we live."  When we are humble,  we are un-fussily realistic about our strengths and weaknesses - about what we are capable of, and what we are not.  We are also clear on the fast that we are not God, and that we cannot heal or transform ourselves on our own.  Thus, when growth or change happens, it is only in humility that we can identify God's provision for us.

When we are proud, we don't have an accurate picture of of the way things really are, and we end up believing we are engineering our own progress.  And then we wonder why we don't see God moving in our lives.  This phenomenon might be another layer of what the apostle Paul meant when he told us we would best know God's strength in our own weaknesses."

Years ago, something I read about pride, in Beth Moore's Praying God's Word, stuck with me: 

"We are wise to remember that Christ never resisted the repentant sinner.  He resisted the religious proud and Pharisaic.  Remember, pride wears many masks...   Pride is not the opposite of low self-esteem.  Pride is the opposite of humility.   We can have a serious pride problem that masquerades as low self-esteem.  Pride is self-absorption whether we're absorbed with how miserable we are or how wonderful we are."

These two things come together to speak to the kind of person I want Christ to make of me...  a truly humble individual.