The Saturday Stoke #39
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“Humility is a virtue of self-understanding in context, acquired by the practice of other centeredness.”
We live in a time in which cultural pressures make it hard to know when to speak up and when to be quiet.
Sadly, social media and other channels of the world wide web make it all too easy for anyone to say anything. You do not need to be kind or patient, you do not need to possess knowledge of the topic on which you speak, you do not need to care for another person’s feelings or career and you do not need to express the dignity of humanity that we all of us possess.
You just need to fire up your phone, tap some nonsense with your thumbs, and press send.
But this is not not true for all people. Many remain silent because they are afraid to share a dissenting view or another perspective. They fear they will be delegitimized by someone on Facebook. It feels like the happy middle does not exist anymore. That place of openness where people can discuss their views without the harsh judgement of being cancelled as a friend or colleague or fired from their job.
“But Tim,” you say, “this is simply the way of it in our culture. It is best, especially for the Christian to keep quiet, like Peter said, and go about their work—don’t rock the boat as it were. You know, pursue peace by keeping our mouths shut. After all this world is not our home.”
“Ah yes,” I reply, “quite right. Indeed, this world is not our home. But dare I say we should not forget that although as good old Jack says, we were made for a different place, we must still inhabit these lands and act as ambassadors for our our true home. And the work of an ambassador demands the use of our mouths and hearts and souls. We must live here for quite some time before we head off for glory. And so it seems that we should work for the prosperity of this realm, as Jeremiah reminds us, and to let our faith be known not only by our hard work, but by our actual words.”
Here’s a quick hack for how to talk with your words in our culture: humility.
But here’s the catch. Do not mistake humility for passivity. Humility begins as a posture toward God. It does not close our mouths. Instead, it guides our words. It does not silence us. Rather, it enables us to choose our words with wisdom.
Humility is a gaze beyond our own selves—one resting upon God. It sees God and worships him in wisdom and in truth.
Humility manifests in serving others.
Humility combines with meekness in that allows a person to be guided by God, not by selfish ambition.
Richard Foster reminds us that humility “does not mean groveling or finding the worst possible things to say about ourselves.” He says that humility means living “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 I think about pursuing the humble life in this world, I think it looks like living in such a way as to bring heaven-culture into our own bent culture.
The humble person finds the strength to stand in silence before the judging crowds, like Jesus before Pilate and the throngs shouting for his execution.
The humble person finds the wisdom to speak with conviction and clarity about the truth of the Gospel before critical crowds who desire nothing else but to mock God and live for themselves, like Paul did at the Areopagus.
The humble person finds the courage to see God’s glory upon the mountain shrouded with storm cloud and fire, like Moses did at Sinai.
I can only guess what Moses felt like on his approach to the holy mountain: afraid, anxious, excited. But remember the wonder and beauty Moses encountered, and the boldness it gave him to lead the people of Israel with the rules for heaven culture.
God wants us to live humbly in this world. But he also wants our humility to lead us to the mountain so that we can sit in his presence and then give our Sinai experience to the world with courage and steadfastness.
I’ll see you on the mountain.
Stay stoked my friends.
