Humility is
a greatly misunderstood grace or virtue. Too many Christians think of it as
trying to think what you don’t think, see what you don’t see, and know what you
don’t actually know. This approach to humility is closer to the eastern and
mystical way of emptying yourself than it is to the biblical way of seeking to
think that which Christ teaches you to think.
In short,
humility is changing your mind not emptying your mind.
C.S. Lewis
somewhere said that humility is not thinking less of yourself, but rather thinking
of yourself less. It is a matter of what you are thinking about, not whether
you are thinking.
A humble man
is thinking, meditating, ruminating, all the time. The use of that word ruminating
is suggestive. A ruminating animal is one that chews the cud—and there has to
be something substantive there to chew.
Christian
meditation is content rich. The “grass” we chew is supposed to be everlasting
grass, and we meditate on it with eternity in view. This is why we meditate on
the Scriptures—which are forever, and on how we may bless our brother or
sister, who will live forever. We do not meditate on anything that is transient
or fog-like.
When you
think about yourself and your own pleasures, trying to edify yourself that way,
there is an essential contradiction involved. You are trying to see your own
eyeball with your own eyeball. But you were made to look into your neighbor’s
eyes, not your own. And the only way it is safe to look even indirectly into
your own eyes is when you are using a mirror—and it has to be the mirror of the
Word.
If you use
the mirrors of the flattering world, you will be combing your hair in
accordance with the fun house mirrors at the carnival.
