learning more about humility...

You can find it here: Amazon

A month or so ago I read a wonderful book called The Power of Words and the Wonder of God. I was greatly benefited by the whole book, but the last two chapters called Conversations with the Contributors (they're transcripts of talks from a Desiring God conference), opened my eyes to some things I've been missing. I wrote this post out soon after I read it and just haven't posted it until now.

So without quoting the whole section of the book I would like to share with  you a few bits and pieces from it! I hope they will serve as a refreshing reminder!

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I've read books about humility before, and I learned much from them, but the explanation of humility from this book made so much more sense to me.

The bottom line: Humility is essentially self-forgetfulness.  

Mr. Piper says: "...the way you experience humility is by not experiencing it - which is self-forgetfulness. The really humble person is not thinking about himself. He should be thinking about two other things: one is how glorious God is, and the other is how he could help another person, being involved as a servant and being really active."

I found this paragraph surprising: "Our church is located two blocks from a major mental health institution. One of the things that all the folks there have in common -- and we love them to death and they come and do funny things at our church and some of them we know really well -- is that they're all wrapped up in themselves. All mentally ill people are consumed with themselves. They don't connect right with what other people are praying. They don't understand what's going on in the situation. Everything is just in their minds, swirling around with guilt or fear or panic... But all of us are that way a little bit. And so, to me, mental health is very largely finding out how not to be that way."
Humility is good for mental health!

There are two ways Mr Piper suggests to help us move toward humility. One way is to ask for it. And the second way is to familiarize yourself with greatness (focus on God, other people, a story... something greater than yourself).

I think humility is the key to a truly happy and productive person. When you're not caught up with yourself,  there won't be the fear, self-consciousnesses, and the ease of getting discouraged. I've discovered personally that when my focus is on Christ... productivity increases dramatically!

This is my ever increasing desire in life: Treasure Christ above all things. That's where the joy is, and that's when I'll be truly helpful to others.


"Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another, for “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.”
~1 Peter 5:5