Amazing! A lesson in Humility!

Jesus is God in the flesh and He washed the disciples’ feet. I had heard the word humility since I was a kid and I was sure I had it. That was until one day I couldn’t figure out what should have been a simple computer problem. It was then that it reared it’s ugly head - PRIDE!!
The interesting thing is I had been praying for the Lord to reveal to me the sins of my heart(because it says in Psalms and elsewhere in the Word that we have no idea), the funny part is there was apparently some part of me that didn’t think there was any there - PRIDE!!
So I decided to learn as much as I could about humility because I apparently needed it in large doses!
According to Dictionary.com humility means to be humble. This definition may have helped if I had known what humble meant. So I searched for humble. As if the penny dropped, I could hear the sound of it, clarity born in my head. Sure, when you hear the word humble you picture Jesus, the same thing happened to me, but after that I had nothing.
“To lower in condition, importance or dignity. To make meek and finally, to destroy the independence, power or will of.”
I thought and prayed about these three senses of the word humble. Did I demonstrate any of these qualities in real life? The first definition I considered was lower in condition, importance or dignity. I know that I at least strive for that because I have watched and admired my husband for years. Though he was a Staff Sergeant and could have been so selfish(as many are), he sought to help his soldiers, lift them up and to do as much as possible to make the Army work for them. I remembered watching his troops and how much they trusted him and I wanted to lead like that. I fight for that mindset. I then remembered Jesus, vividly washing His disciples’ feet saying the least shall be the greatest. I heard as if I had been there with them, Peter say,
“Then wash all of me, Lord.” I was feeling that I too needed a good washing.
1 Peter 5:5-6 - God resists the proud. {See Chuck’s commentary on this at the Blue Letter Bible web page, it is dandy} So there I was realizing how horribly I had been failing at trying to mimic both my husband and Jesus. I prayed the Lord would forgive me and give me the grace hat I needed abundantly and to give me the strength to share it!
So then I contemplated the second definition, to make meek. I thought about that awhile and started remembering people’s description of me and meek would not be it. There would be a lot of words opposite to that. Powerful, outspoken, strong, funny and on and on. However, meek would not enter their minds. Suddenly, my mind came upon the verses that deal with meekness. Matthew 5:5 - the meek inherit the earth - I wanted to inherit the earth, not that I knew what I would do with it when I had it, but Jesus thought it was important because it was in the beatitudes! According to Zepaniah 3:12 it is the meek and the humble that the Lord will leave in Jerusalem. I wanted to be in the future Jerusalem!
Then I came to 1 Corinthians 10:1. This is an amazing verse! Paul the most prolific teacher and writer was meek and timid! This verse was cross referenced to Matthew 11:29-30. Jesus, God in man who knows everything about everything to include my computer and its “quirks!” He says He is meek and humble - the Creator of the Universe is the embodiment of meek and humble and I thought I was the shizzle, a unsung genius, an overlooked hero!! How stupid! I disproved my own self-theory in one fell swoop, proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that I was the least intelligent among us!
I then moved onto the next part of the definition. Destroying the independence, power or will of. Interestingly, God, Creator and sustainer of the universe and our existence, is also a God of free will. This means that while He has the power to tear from me my own will and self-diluted independence and power, He does not. He leaves it there. Romancing us like we were all the last women or men on earth. Chasing us as if His life depended on it - when in point of fact it is our life that depends on Him, we have to rest in the fact that our power is nothing.
We have to get up every day and pray for a heart filled with Him, chasing after Him. Pray that He would keep us humble in every sense of the word! As Calvary Chapel’s Brian Brodersen says, “God is the only one who can handle compliments because He doesn’t let them go to His head.” I was convicted and finally understanding what the word meant I prayed for release from it and that the Lord would help me move forward, it was then that He lead me to 1 Chronicles 7:14,
“If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.” Yeah, it was all going to be alright.