Tag Archives: humility

#Humility: New Wine Podcast #008

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Perhaps a working definition of humility would go something like this: Having an honest appraisal of oneself that allows for the interests of others to pursued and deepens the desire for this pursuit.

So humility doesn’t mean lying about your accomplishments because you don’t want to seem too arrogant.  And it doesn’t mean trying not to achieve anything of value for fear of accolades.  And humility doesn’t mean having false humility when someone give you praise.

You can listen to it on the bottom of this post, on iTunes, or on Stitcher.

If you like it, would you please rate it and even leave a review on iTunes or Stitcher?  That would be super cool!

Thanks!

 

 

Waiting for the Drop

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The Drop in Dubstep

Dub-what?  If you’ve not heard of dubstep, don’t worry.  It might not be for you.  Or it might.  Who knows?

But if you want to know what it is, well here’s the best way I can describe it: It’s a genre of electronic dance music which generally starts out slow but after a short while a large bass sound hits and the song’s aggressiveness increases.  Dubstep’s is chiefly characterized by its 140 or 70 beats per minute pace, its use of lots of “wub” and “wah” sounds, its sampling of vocal tracks (rapping or singing), and its “the drop” (that big bass sound at the beginning).

And it’s the drop that I want to talk about here.  Why you ask?  For one reason: the way some people dance to dubstep.  (Note: I rarely dance and never to dubstep, at least not to date.  All of my dubstep dance knowledge is due to So You Think You Can Dance? and YouTube.)

So when people dance to dubstep they typically do what is called “waiting for the drop.”  What this means is that the dancer does some light and slow moves prior to the drop.  But when the drop hits, well, things generally get crazy!  There’s lots of flailing, locking and popping, and general silliness!

Sometimes dubstep dance instructions are even given like this: 1. Wait for the drop; 2. Go nuts!

But what if the drop never came or took a long time to come?

Waiting for the Drop in Life

There’s something that I have done in my life from time to time that maybe you can relate with.  I wait for the drop.  What do I mean by that?  Well, let me unpack it a bit.

A lot of us who follow Jesus are convinced that at some point in our lives we’ll get some sort of a uber-clear directive from God (AKA “the drop”), after which we’ll get busy following Jesus for real.  So what do we do in the mean time?  Well, we try to be good by not doing things that we’re told are wrong.  We go about life like everyone else, working, dating, getting married, retiring, etc. (all good things!).  Sometimes we’re in a holding pattern until the drop comes.

But what if it doesn’t come?  What if we never get that uber-clear directive from God, that be-a-pastor, go-to-southeast-asia, lead-a-revolution-for-the-sake-of-the-kingdom directive?  Will we just continue doing what seems right to us, what we think pleases God?  Will we just simply continue to do what everyone in the culture around us is doing?

I’m not sure about you, but I’ve been guilty of this many times.  I’ve wanted to hear that call to a BIG obedience and missed out on all the things God might have for me day-to-day.  While waiting for the drop, life passes me by.

Can you relate?

The Drop Can Wait

Let me share with you something I’ve learned during my 25+ years of following Jesus — the drop can wait.  Can you or I control when God might want to call us to some sort of a BIG obedience?  No!?  But what we can control, with the help of the Holy Spirit, is what we do when we aren’t experiencing the drop.

And what does that look like?  How should we dance before (or after!) the drop hits?  Let’s turn to Scripture for some help…

“He has told you, mortals, what is good in His sight.
    What else does the Eternal ask of you
But to live justly and to love kindness
    and to walk with your True God in all humility?”

(Micah 6.8 in The Voice translation)

So while waiting for the drop (or the second, third, fourth, etc. drop), let’s do these three things that are good in God’s sight:

1. Live justly.

Translated literally, this phrases says something like this “diligently seek justice.”  But the way the The Voice puts it is great — “live justly.”  Justice is not just something that we pursue only when we feel some super-obvious call from God (“the drop”).  No!  It’s something we live, something we seek with all we are.

And the justice that we are to live out it not our personal version of justice, American justice, Democratic or Republican justice, ethnic justice, or any other sort of justice.  It’s God’s justice — defined by him and his Word and sought after in ways that he sees fit.

So what might God’s justice and the pursuit thereof look like?  There’s one best place to look — Jesus’ life!  Read through the Gospels.  See how Jesus sought God’s justice for people, especially people who had been written off, like sinners, tax collector, religious zealots, work-a-day people, etc.  Then imitate Jesus in your life.  Live Jesus’ human life in your human life.

2. Love kindness.

Things get more sticky with this second idea.  Why?  Because I can try to live justly in an unkind manner.  But we aren’t given that option in Micah 6.8.  We are told to also love kindness.  So while we’re waiting for the drop, not only should we live justly, but we should love kindness.

The word for “kindness” here is one you may recognize: hesed.  It is often translated as follows: “mercy,” “loving kindness,” “unfailing love,” and/or “loyalty.”  The ancient Greek translation of the Old Testament, which is called the Septuagint, translates this word as eleos, which means “mercy” or “compassion.”  So the idea seems pretty clear — hesed is not a one-off kind of word.  It means to show mercy or compassion consistently.

And not just to show kindness to others…but to love it!  How many of us love showing kindness?  I don’t always!  But that’s our instruction.  We are to love having compassion on others.

And what does this look like?  Well, again, look at Jesus’ life and words.  He said “love your neighbor as yourself” and he did just that, giving away his time, his sleep, his comfort, and ultimately his life.

3. Walk with God in all humility.  

Sometimes the best way to understand something is to think of the opposite.  So, what would it look like to walk with God in all pride?  Perhaps you would walk with God only to get out of him what you think is best.  Maybe you would walk with God, pretending like you are an equal with him.  Perhaps you would walk with God in such a way to improve your reputation and not his.

So a good start with walking with God in all humility might be NOT doing those things!  Instead let’s follow God in order to serve him and his will in this world.  Let’s follow God while keeping in mind an honest appraisal of ourselves as sinners desperately in need of his grace and forgiveness.  And let’s follow God in such a way to make ourselves less and to increase his fame.

So while we are waiting for the drop we should walk with God humbly.  Walk.  That implies action, movement, and consistency.  Walking humbly with God is not a one-time decision.  It’s a lifestyle.

 

So let’s stop waiting for the drop.  Let’s start living for God now!  And when the drop comes, when he asks us to something specific and “big,” then we’ll be ready.

 

What do you think?  How should we live as we wait for the drop?  Let me know in the comments below.

Mistakes, Humility, and Learning

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Mistakes are part of what it means to be on mission with Jesus.

How do I know this?  Read the Gospels and look at the dozens and dozens of mistakes that the disciples make as they try to follow Jesus.  Mess up, after mess up, after mess up.  Confusion on top of confusion.  Mistakes galore.

How else do I know this?  Because I have experienced this more often in the last few months of my life than I would like to admit.  And these last few months have been filled with my wife, my community, and I making attempts to be on mission with Jesus.

 

Mistakes

Why is this the case?  Why do we seem to make a bunch of mistakes when we try to be on mission with Jesus?  I think there are two primary reasons:

  1. Following Jesus Is Risky — To be on mission with Jesus means that we put our safety and comfort aside for what really matters.  And what’s that; what really matters?  God’s will, that’s what.  And what is God’s will?  Friends, this is not trick question and it’s not that complicated.  Really.  From the beginning to the end of the Bible we see it.  Namely, God’s will is to be involved with reconciling all things to God in Christ (2 Corinthians 5.19).  In God’s economy there nothing of more worth than this!  This goal is worth risking everything.  And as we risk stuff, we will make mistakes.  Maybe we’ll risk the wrong thing.  Maybe we’ll focus our attention in the wrong place.  Maybe we’ll hurt lots of feelings by focusing on one thing and not on another.  The point is this: being on mission is risky and with risk comes mistakes.
  2. Following Jesus is Messy — If being on mission with Jesus means being involved in the reconciliation of all things to God in Christ, then this is going to be messy.  Why is that?  Simple: fixing broken relationships is hard.  Just think about the last time you hurt someone and needed to make things right with them.  How’d that go?  Was it easy?  Was it nice and tidy?  Probably not.  I’m sure it was a mess.  And in the midst of that mess we’re going to make a ton of mistakes.  We just will.  We’ll try our best and we’ll still mess up.  We’ll have the best intentions and yet we’ll still hurt people that matter to us.  We’ll be actively engaged in reconciliation and we’ll actually damage the person or people we’re trying to reconnect with.  And our mistakes will be in our behavior, our words, and our postures.  Reconciliation = mistakes.  That’s a universal law right there with gravity.

Humility

So there are a few responses to making mistakes:

  1. Pretending — We can act like we’re perfect and that we never, ever make mistakes.  Some of us are so used to doing this that we don’t even recognize it anymore.  It’s just part of our lives.  We lie.  Let’s just call it what it is.
  2. Shutting Down — We make mistakes.  We try again.  Then we make more mistakes.  Then we try.  Mistakes.  Try.  Mistakes.  Etc.  So, eventually we just quit trying.  We shut down.  We quit.
  3. Getting Defensive — So we make some mistakes and some of us defend ourselves.  Maybe we’ll make some excuses.  Maybe we’ll tell the person or people we have hurt all the reasons that they are wrong about how they feel and that the mistake we made is actually not really a mistake at all.  If this sounds familiar to you, then you’re a lot like me.  Yay for you!
  4. Becoming Humble — This is the goal that we should all be shooting for.  When we make mistakes we ought to humbly accept our responsibility and begin to make amends.  We shouldn’t lie.  We shouldn’t quit.  And we shouldn’t get defensive.  Instead, we should be humble and seek to continue the reconciliation process.

 

Learning

And the great news, of course, is that if we’re humble we can begin to learn how to make less mistakes.  Now don’t get me wrong; we’re always going to make mistakes.  We aren’t perfect.  But we can begin to learn how not to make the same mistakes over and over again.

In so doing we’ll hurt the people we love and are trying to be reconciled with a bit less.  We’ll build trust.  We’ll demonstrate our love.  We’ll embody the good news of Jesus.  And we’ll begin to engage more fully in doing God’s will of reconciling all things to himself in Christ.

Some of this learning will be natural, trial-and-error type of learning.  Some of it will be gained through studying.  And much of it will be through listening to people vastly different from us so that we can learn from various perspectives.

 

Mistakes aren’t going away.  So we better figure out what to do when we make them!

 

Friends, how do you deal with making mistakes?  What role do humility and learning play in that process?

Arrogance: What’s Wrong with It?

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arrogance

Richard Sherman during 2013 Seattle Seahawks training camp. After the AFC Championship game, Sherman made some comments that many have interpreted as highly arrogant. What do you think?

Why Talk about Arrogance?

Thanks to a crazy post-game interview by Seattle Seahawks standout cornerback Richard Sherman, arrogance has been on my mind.  Click on the link in the previous sentence to watch a video of the interview or you can read what was said here:

Erin Andrews: Richard, let me ask you; the final play, take me through it…

Sherman:  Well, I’m the best corner in the game!  When you try me with a sorry receiver like Crabtree, that’s the result you’re going to get!  Don’t you ever talk about me!

Andrews: Who was talking about you?

Sherman: Crabtree.  Don’t you open your mouth about the best!  Or I’m going to shut it for you real quick!  L-O-B!

Andrews: Alright, befo-…and…Joe, back over to you!

I don’t want to judge Sherman directly.  Instead, I want to examine why I didn’t like his comments.

So, why didn’t I?  One word: arrogance.

Again, I want to be clear, I’m not accusing Sherman of being arrogant.  What I’m saying is that his comments certainly sounded awfully arrogant.  I mean, the guy talked about being the best twice in the matter of fifteen seconds.

And when I heard Sherman’s comments I immediately cringed.  And as I’ve thought about why I cringed, it forced me to think a bit about arrogance and how it comes across to others.  As a follower of Jesus and/or as a leader, this is an important topic.  How people perceive you is a big deal!  It can make or break your witness to someone and it can sap whatever leadership capital you may have built up over time.

arrogance

Silly cat!

So, What’s Wrong with Arrogance?

  1. As Sherman’s interview plainly illustrates, it can cause you to belittle those around you.  Even if you are the best at what you do or even if you are qualitatively better than others, no one wants to hear it.  No one.
  2. Arrogance can cause the people around you to be uncomfortable.  Just listen to Andrews’ final response to Sherman.  She’s clearly uncomfortable in that situation.  When you tell the world that you are the best, it makes others not want to listen to you or be around you anymore!
  3. Being arrogant can also lead to being over-scrutinized.  If you go around telling everyone how great you are, then the moment you do something stupid, silly, wrong, or just mediocre, people are going to notice!  They are going to remember that you said you were the best and point out to you how you really aren’t!
  4. Those with whom you are associated are affected by your arrogance also.  Seahawks’ players and coaches are having to answer questions now about Sherman’s post-game tirade when they’d rather be talking about football.  The same is true in reality.  When you are arrogant those around you are forced to either defend you, explain you, make excuses for you, or distance themselves from you.  None of those things are very considerate of the people closest to you!
  5. Lastly, arrogance is connected with self-centeredness, disagreeability, poor work performance, and lowered cognitive abilities.  In other words, being arrogant can cause people not to like you and it can hurt how well you are actually doing whatever it is that you are doing.  [SOURCE]

So, what does all of this mean for followers of Jesus and/or Christian leaders?  Don’t be arrogant!  We must fight against our natural tendencies to toot our own horns!  We need to remember that we are all messed up and broken sinners in constant need of God’s grace and anything that we do well is only thanks to the blessings of God and the help of others.  In other words, we need to live out Philippians 2.3-4:

Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.

What do you think?  What affect does arrogance have in our relationships?  Let me know in the comments below!