Humility
God Is Bigger And Smaller Than We Can Comprehend
“Humility isn’t thinking less of yourself. It’s thinking of yourself less.” – Rick Warren
The farthest star that we can reliably see without a telescope is Cassiopeia, which is 16,300 light years away. One light year is about 5.88 trillion miles, so one tiny part of God’s incredible creation is 95,844 trillion miles from me, and I can see it! It’s light shines in the darkness through and beyond trillions of other parts of God’s universe and that light reaches the tiny part of God’s creation that is me. The vastness blows my mind.
And yet when I zoom in and think about tiny me (in the big scheme of things) and that God loves all of creation including those tiny parts, as flawed as they are in my case, that’s even more overwhelming.
God is bigger and smaller than we can comprehend.
Humility is a form of spiritual modesty that is rooted in understanding our place in God’s larger picture. A posture of humility helps us to see the divine in every human being. In God’s creation, as divinity-bearers, we are a small part of a larger whole. To be clear, humility is not about being weak, passive, or lacking confidence. Rather, to be spiritually humble is to remain uniquely ourselves, while at the same time aware that we are inseparable from all of creation.
Years ago, someone described this idea to me by showing me a picture of a fractal, which is a never-ending, repeating pattern. Fractals are infinitely complex having the exact same pattern regardless of the scale. They can look like chaos at close view, but when you step back the individual parts combine to create stunning patterns, like a snowflake. Each of us is a small, yet integral part of something big and beautiful. The same is true in our families.
As a family, it can be difficult to practice and model humility in a society that values and even rewards bigness - elevating oneself over others.
We are ladder-climbers. This isn’t to say that it’s bad to have goals and a desire to achieve big things. It’s a matter of perspective. As we work our way up to the top, the distance between us and those below can grow. As we look down, we can seem bigger and those “below” us can appear smaller, or less than. But in God’s economy all of this is flipped on its head. “The last shall be first and the first shall be last”. (Matthew 20:16) In God’s economy, rather than elevating ourselves, we seek to elevate others. Last place wins!
There are many ways to model this posture of humility in a family, some of which include listening, intentional power-sharing, honesty (about ourselves and others) and story-sharing.
It’s important in families to make time to listen to one another between the surface noise, setting aside time to do that for each other daily. We can also elevate others by giving power consciously to one another through our words and actions especially between parents and children, and younger and older siblings.
Yielding to others, giving someone younger or less experienced decision-making power, or changing role-expectations for example, can be scary but freeing.
We can also do this as a spiritual practice by putting God at the center of our family and by sharing with each other how we see God moving in our family-member’s lives. It’s also important to cultivate a practice of giving very specific thanks to each other and to God. Being thankful puts us in a posture of humility and helps us realize that all of life is gift. The things that God and other people do for us are not just tangible acts of kindness, they are acts of care and love.
Humility also tends to coincide with honesty. We are not always completely honest with ourselves, others, or God. We try. We are honest to a point. But then when things become uncomfortable, we obscure, hide, or simply change the subject.
Humility is seeing ourselves as we truly are, and when we speak to others, to do so in love.
Sometimes humility means letting someone else tell the story even if it happened to us. This includes not correcting them when they make the inevitable mistakes. It means quietly helping somebody else out without expecting their thanks in return. And sometimes it means making another person the focus of the family’s attention at a gathering or celebration because you know they need it more than you do.[i]
Come to think of it, humility looks a lot like love. . .
There’s a parable about a man who asked his rabbi why people couldn’t seem to reach high enough to see the face of God. The rabbi was quite old, had experienced a great deal in his life and was very wise. “My son,” he said, “that is not the way it is at all. You cannot see the face of God because there are so few people who can stoop that low. How sad this is…Learn to bend, to bow, to kneel and stoop and you will be able to see God face-to-face.”[ii]
The practice of Humility is about acknowledging our faults and weaknesses and being accountable to each other. We strive to recognize our gifts and talents and the gifts and talents of others and then humbly use those gifts for the good of all as we care for each other and for our neighbors.
[i] Thank you to Pastor’s Brett Desper, Bob Swope, and Mike Golden for sharing their wisdom with me around the practice of Humility. [ii]The Challenge of Humility | Spiritual Practices for Everyday Life | Spirituality & Practice (spiritualityandpractice.com)