Humility: Another one of my redeeming qualities

How often do we Christians lie to each other? Several times a day? "How are you?" "Fine." It's the standard Kenyan greeting. Lie.

Reminds me of The Italian Job, where they tell you that "Fine" stands for Freaked out, Insecure, Neurotic, and Emotional.

Sometimes when I say "Fine" I wish someone would look me in the eye and say, "Tell me the truth." But we Christians don't do that very often, do we? We like thinking everything's wonderful. We like hearing how God is helping us to live wonderful perfect lives.

Donald Miller challenges us in Searching For God Knows What to consider what would happen if we met a fellow Christian for the first time and asked, "So what addictions do you struggle with?" or "When do you feel least loved by your wife?" We don't do that. But if we're really part of the family of God, then we need to acknowledge that we can go deeper with each other. We can be honest and true and real.

I think that one of the detriments to the faith has been the influence of Western individualism. I'm my own person. It's none of your business what I do when I'm alone in my room at night.

But it is. It is your business. Because I'm not on my own anymore. Dietrich Bonhoeffer said, "The last individual thing I did was become a Christian." Nothing we do is for our own interest anymore, and everything we do creates ripples in the whole Christian community.
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But how is this conviction related to the title concerning humility? To answer, let me tell you about the world where I grew up.

It was very conservative. Missionaries from the Brethren Church. Homeschool families with denim jumpers, long hair, and eight kids. Baptists with a capital B.
They constantly made fun of pentecostals and charismatics and catholics and episcopals and anglicans and methodists and southern baptists and atheists and agnostics and doubters and questioners and evolutionists and anyone who was different from them. They introduced me to the idea that April 1 is "National Atheists Day" and quoted from Proverbs, "The fool has said in his heart that there is no God."

And heaven forbid you ever say anything good about yourself. You must be struggling with pride. You can't even tell people what Spiritual Gift you have, because if you do, you can't possibly be humble.

No, if you have the gift of leadership, you better not offer to lead, or you're a control freak. You have to wait until someone asks you to lead.

So, I don't struggle with pride. I struggle with humility. These are very different issues. I have problems acknowledging that I'm smart or capable or pretty. For some reason, if I'm secure in my abilities, I must be proud.

But that's not true. At all. It's silly for a hand to deny being a hand.

God gave us gifts to edify the body of believers. To deny the fact that we have gifts to use is to cripple the Church. We should rejoice in our talents, in the abilities that we have, because we are part of a community. And if we don't use them like we should, we're not only causing problems for the Church, but we're insulting God. We're treating Him like that strange aunt that always sends us Christmas presents that are totally useless.

God doesn't give us useless gifts.

My godmother lives in Germany and I haven't had much contact with her over the years except for Christmas and Birthdays, when she sends me presents. But every year, she managed to send me something that not only fit my age, but was undoubtedly "me". And the funny thing was, she didn't have kids for my entire childhood- her oldest is only seven or eight now. But somehow she knew.

God knows. Not only does God know, He created us with our quirks and likes and pet peeves. So the gifts He gives us are in perfect harmony with our personalities.

Why, then, are we so nervous about admitting that God has made something that is undeniably "good"?