"HUMILITY"

Topic: Humility

There was a time when the word "humility" was a word of contempt. One
could not offer a man a greater insult than to call him humble. To call a
man humble was to characterize him as cowardly and weak. But when Christ
came, He took this hated word and made it one of the most honorable in our
language. The virtue it expresses, once so despised, is now regarded as
the crowning grace of life. Humility is now considered a virtue so
beautiful, so exalted, that men seek to cultivate it. One cannot pay a man
a greater tribute today than to say that he possesses the grace of
humility. 

The word "humility" means literally a low estimate of self. But this does
not imply self-deprecation. When you hear someone deprecating himself,
usually you can put it down as a sort of counterfeit humility. Someone has
said, "The true way to be humble is not to stoop until you are smaller
than yourself, but to stand at your full height before some higher nature
that will show you how small your greatness is." "Walk humbly with thy
God." Here is where we learn true humility. Walking with God, seeing
ourselves by the side of His greatness, we see how little we are. And
seeing how little we are is the first step toward becoming what we can and
ought to be.

We never become truly great, we never do our best work until we are
"clothed with humility"; until, like our Lord and Savior, we are willing
to live to serve others. 
"He has showed you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of
you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your
God?" (Micah 6:8) 

- As excerpted from "Facing Life" by Reverend John R. Gunn
(Used with permission by the family of Reverend Gunn)