C.S. Lewis
March 28, 2010
March 28 reading in A Year with C.S Lewis
Title: Point of Contact
We must not hink Prise is something God forbids because he is offended at it, or that Humility is something he demands as due to His own dignity–as if God himself was proud. He is He isn’t in the least worried about His dignity. HTe point is, He wants you to know Him: wants to give you Himself. And He and you are two things of such a kind that if you really get into any kind of touch with Him you will, in fact, be humble–delightedly humble, feeling the infinite relief of having once got rid of all the silly nonsense about your own dignity which has made you restless an unhappy all your life. He is trying to make you humble in order to make this moment possible: trying to take off a lot of silly, fancy-dress in which we have all go ourselves up and are strutting about like the little idiots we are. I wish I had got a bit further with humility myself: If I had, I could probably tell you more about the relief, the comfort, of taking the fancy-dress off–getting rid of the false self, with all its ‘look at me’ and ‘Aren’t I a good boy?’ and all it posing and posturing. To get even near it, even for a moment, is like a drink of cold water to a man in a desert. From Mere Christianity
Learning to Run on Empty
March 1, 2010
Learning to Run on Empty
Last month I wrote about pride and asked myself “why am I at times like this?” This month, I want to offer a cure: The Antidote to pride is humility, or poverty of spirit. Other biblical words are also synonymous with humility: meekness, submissiveness, and lowliness. A song in the 70s speaks about running on empty. Empty of a false self is a good way of describing humility. So is this you? Is it becoming you? Is humility the condition of my soul?
Monica Baldwin: “What makes humility so desirable is the marvelous thing it does to us; it creates in us a capacity for the closest possible intimacy with God.”
Declared by Einstein as the greatest scientific mind, Sir Isaac Newton said: “If I have seen further than others, it is by standing upon the shoulders of giants.”
“Humility is the foundation of all the other virtues hence, in the soul in which this virtue does not exist there cannot be any other virtue except in mere appearance.”
Saint Augustine
Aspiring to a humble life is worthy of all the effort we can put into it. Ask the world and it will tell you in so many ways the humble get nowhere. Make your mark on the world, step over anyone in your path, and get to the top at all cost. And when you do… Few are they out there in “Egypt Land,” who say: “Blessed are the poor in spirit.” Perhaps we shouldn’t expect it when even in “Beulah Land” humility is easily forgotten.
In the church… our mandate is humility. In our life manual our best models and highest instructions are humble people and lowliness. Numbers 12:3 says “Moses was very humble.” Honor, wisdom, grace, fairness, honoring others, greatness, victory, and other attributes worthy of Christ’s kingdom citizens come fast upon the heels of poverty of spirit (peruse these Scriptures and follow references: Proverbs 15:33; Colossians 3:12 1 Peter 5:5; Philippians 2:3; 2 Chronicles 12:6, 30:11; Matthew 18:4; James 4:10; Micah 6:8; Zechariah 9:9). False humility is possible (is it ever; I know it by personal acquaintance, see Colossians 2:23).
The humble in spirit don’t need to worry about the wrong thoughts of others, the morality that others live by. Their main concern is their own attitudes toward God, others, and all living things. Humility comes from seeing ourselves properly that is, truthfully, realistically, honestly, without any guile or pretense. The humble know they have gifts, abilities, strengths, and worth. They also know that all they have can be developed further (Jeff Cook).
The humble minimize or eliminate comparative living. They know and appreciate and praise others’ gifts, abilities be they few or many. They do not compete to outdo others to shine in the eyes of all. They may set as a goal to outdo the whole world in well doing but only to please the Master with whom they walk humbly. They come along side others and throw what eight they have to make them even look better than they by encouraging and edifying them. When others succeed the humble rejoice. When others fail they shed tears of sorrow in sympathy. They offer help.
How do you get it? How do you learn to run on empty? Because it does not come naturally to us, humility is a learned attitude and behavior. Jesus was humble and meek (Matthew 11:19). “I love this about you Jesus. How did you do it? Did you willpower your way into being humble?” “The will has no power, my child.” Did you hole up somewhere until it came to you?” “If you hole up it will certainly not come to you.” “Did you seek humility?” “It would not be humility if you sought it in your own strength.”
“How then?” Jesus answered: “Get a vision of my life, purify your intention and learn the means I used to do life with God. Look at my life carefully. I fasted in humility before the grand will of God. I prayed constantly. I watched to see where my Father was working and worked at the same things and in the same way he works. I took long walks alone into the wilderness as often as possible to be alone and to sort out my motives. I studied the Scriptures to learn from others. I memorized much of them so that the same Holy Spirit who gave them shaped my heart. By them I grew in wisdom. Because of them, I learned to be obedient to the end. I marinated in them day and night, taking them into heart, mind, soul, and body. I served. I worshiped. I sacrificed. I gave my all to all. I ran on empty even of my own rights to run on full (Philippians 2:1-11).” “I see. I will go and do likewise, good and faithful Servant.”
Walking with the Master is the humble way. It is the way of poverty of spirit, the condition of our hearts as we are brought into life in the kingdom of God. Amen. Lord, have mercy.
Why Am I Like That?
March 1, 2010
Why am I at times like this?
I think much more about myself when I should be more mindful of others? I cause pain to those I love. I chicken out when it comes to standing up to those who hurt others. I act stupidly but I blame others. I make a mess in my life by having unhealthy appetites. Why is speaking badly of others so at home on the tip of my tongue? Why is my soul so broken?
Dare I ask it? Why is yours? Neither you nor I are the first to struggle with answers to our experience of pride.
When asked what is wrong with the world, G.K. Chesterton responded with this shortest essay ever written: “I am.” The reason he was so sure of his response is because of a realistic view of his own sin, which is first and foremost a power inhabiting our physical bodies. Long ago, one of the early Christians told us that sin “tends to make that which is cease to be.”
Jeff Cook sees sin as a parasite in need of a host, which we willingly supply. As a power sin cannot exist on its own. Just like the demons in Jesus’ parable, they take up residence in the house of a willing host.
Early in the life of the church all kinds of saints tried to understand the reality of sin and its manifestations. So they created lists of the most essential elements of sin. One author called these elements “wrong thoughts.” Others prefer to see them as challenges to our faith. Another named them deadly sins. History finally settled on naming seven of them: Pride, envy, sloth, greed, lust, wrath, and gluttony. From these spring all other sins we commit. Rape, violent acts, gossip, adultery, and murder come from anger or wrath or envy or lust. Cheating and hording come from greed. You get the idea.
Why do some call these seven sins the deadly sins? Well, cogitate with me for a moment. For example, a person who is totally possessed by pride, or his heart is strongly grasped by it, will be affected at the deepest levels of his being by his arrogance. Pride’s tentacles extend to all aspects of his life. The way he perceives everything (his whole worldview) is tainted and affected by his high view of himself and low view of others.
Do you owns shares in the common stock of pride? Are you a member of the club? Is pride in your life? We all naturally love ourselves; self-love is mandated by our Lord “love your neighbor as yourself.” But when I exaggerate this love of myself or pervert it into contempt for others, I am full of pride. Pride or arrogance is a debilitating, death-thirsty self-inflicted disease, gone on a rampage in us.
If pride is leprosy, I pronounce myself unclean. Who can deliver me from this deadening sin? Thank be to God. He owns the business of grave digging and has a monopoly on bringing the dead back to life from the dark tomb of pride.
The proud think they contribute more than they do. They believe they are more important than they really are. Because their own self blinds them, they are unable to recognize the contributions of others. They believe that if they think highly of others somehow they are thinking less of themselves.
One who knows wrote: “Pride is the cause of the most damaging fall for the soul. It induces the Christian to deny that God is his helper and to consider that he himself is the cause of his own virtues” (Evagrius of Ponticus, 345-399 AD). Another, who struggled with pride for a long time wrote: “pride made the soul desert God, to who it should cling as the source of life, and to imagine itself instead as the source of its own life” (Augustine of Hippo, 354-430 AD).
Jeff Cooke adds: “the more I make my life, my well-being, my enlightenment, and my success primary, the farther I step from reality. Thus the hell-bound do not travel downward; they travel inward, cocooning themselves behind a mass of vanity, personal rights, religiosity, and defensiveness” (The Deadly Sins and the Beatitudes, p. 34).
The elder son in the prodigal son story is the epitomy of this kind of pride. It destroyed his ability to connect with his father, his brother, and even his own soul. Pride is the one sin that makes everyone ill and especially the one who has it.
When you find pride in yourself, or in others, you will also find much private thinking, much time spent alone because of disdain of others, and much lone ranger activity; a tenacious unwillingness to submission to authority of any kind.
Christianity in North America suffers today because millions of individual Christians have decided to go it alone without the church. Believing they are right, they do their own thing without any accountability, any submission to authority, deeming themselves captains of their own souls, masters of their own ships, with the determination to seek their own destinies apart from tradition. Pride moved into their neighborhood, and emerged as a virtue. Jesus and me and a few others and the h… with the rest of you… If an implosion of Christianity were to take place in the West, history will judge pride as the fuse that lit the downward spiral.
The antidote of pride is humility, the subject of the next article. Until next month, think through with Jesus about the damage to your soul that pride is wreaking (read Luke 15:11-32; Luke 16. There are great lessons about pride here). Walk a little with the master immersed in his words in these great texts. Look full into his wonderful face. The things of pride may grow strangely familiar.
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