Humble Roots: How Humility Grounds and Nourishes Your Soul

by Hannah Anderson

Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.

The rest that Jesus offers only comes when we humble ourselves and submit to Him.

In the book of Jeremiah, the prophet describes the people of Jerusalem as cattle who have “broken the yoke … burst the bonds.”13 They have refused to come under the care and correction of their kind Master and instead are wandering free. But in wandering away, they have exposed themselves to danger. Jeremiah writes: “Therefore a lion from the forest shall strike them down; a wolf from the desert shall devastate them.” By leaving the yoke of their Master, they have become prey for the wild, unpredictable world around them. It is understandable that we fear the yoke. We fear the loss of control. We fear surrender. But we must also understand

is “trying” to be humble, you can spot it almost immediately. You may not be able to articulate why, but you know that the person is not actually humble. In fact, false modesty is so prevalent in our culture that we even have a term for it: the humble brag. A humble brag is a statement that initially sounds humble because it uses certain words like “humble” or “thankful,” but ultimately it draws attention back to the person making it:

The same is true of humility. If a person must announce his humility because we wouldn’t see it otherwise, he is not a truly humble person.

And we end up treating the symptoms instead of the root cause.

When we feel overwhelmed, we establish stricter boundaries and coach ourselves to say no more often. When we are tired, we trust a vacation or carving out “me-time” to alleviate our stress. When we find ourselves falling behind in our work, we commit to better scheduling and longer days. When we feel like we can never do enough, we tell ourselves to just “embrace the mess.” And while any of these could be potentially helpful—having poultry eat insects off plants did offer some benefit—none of them resolve the root issue. None of them eradicate the pride that is feasting on our souls.

If we establish strict boundaries without accepting our lack of control, we’ll simply be harried and unhappy in a smaller space. If we go on vacations without cultivating humility, we’ll return to our stress once the bags are unpacked. If we schedule every available minute without acknowledging our own temporariness, we’ll become a slave to the calendar. And if we try to “embrace th...

As long as we refuse to accept that our pride is the source of our unrest, we will conti...

We too must be grafted. If we are to find rest from our stress, if we are to have any hope of escaping our pride, we must be grafted onto the one who is humility Himself.

Or even the real estate of your own body. You may have never thought of stewarding your body as part of the call to steward the earth, but it’s not that much of a stretch. We are, after all, made from the earth, a mixture of minerals and elements that have only been made alive by the quickening Spirit of God. As well, the success of our bodies (our ability to be fruitful and multiply) is intrinsically connected with the success of the earth. “It is hardly surprising then,” writes naturalist Wendell Berry, “that there should be some profound resemblances between our treatment of our bodies and the treatment of the earth.”1 So how do we “take care of what we’ve been given”? How does humility inform how we steward our bodies?

And so we neglect our bodies because we don’t believe they are worth stewarding. We are uncomfortable in our own skin because we believe it a constant source of temptation. And we chase emotional and spiritual experiences that allow us to escape, if only for a few moments, these prisons of earth. But are we meant to escape our bodies—are we meant to escape the very thing that God designed and called “good”?

When a woman flaunts her sexuality, she does not necessarily want to be reduced to a sex object, but she’s learned, if only by instinct, that this is how a woman can rule in a broken world.

But what if prioritizing our emotional experience is what leads to our emotional chaos in the first place? What if, given the lack of external reality, we have become enslaved to our emotions?

In other words, your judgment of me doesn’t matter. My judgment of myself doesn’t matter either. The only person whose judgment counts is the Lord’s.

Your belief that God couldn’t possibly call you to write or evangelize or advocate for children in foster care means nothing, especially when we’re talking about a God who routinely does above and beyond all that we can ask or think. By the same token, your belief that you should preach or plant a church or lead a social media empire means nothing, especially if you lack gifting, experience consistent failure, and are regularly told to seek a different path.

Emotional humility—understanding that God is greater than our heart—solves both these extremes. Humility reminds us that the lack of confidence does not determine whether God has gifted us and called us. Humility also reminds us that the presence of confidence does not mean that God has gifted us and called us. Just because we believe in ourselves doesn’t mean we should.

Ultimately, by silencing the cacophony of emotion, humility frees you to hear God’s call and leads you to a pla...

At some level, this definition of foolishness is difficult to accept because we tend to associate the ability to make good decisions with the accumulation of knowledge. We tend to believe that coming to a good decision is simply a matter of collecting the right data and processing it mentally. So we rely on “expert” advice (whether that advice comes from a PhD or lifestyle blogger), and the more facts we gather, the more confident we become. But the Scripture roots wisdom in something else entirely; the Scripture roots wisdom in submitting to God. In this sense, a fool is not unwise because she does not have enough facts; she is unwise because she doesn’t submit to the source of wisdom Himself.

This is why very educated people can also be very unwise people and why very religious people can be as well. Wisdom is not the result of formal education or religious practice; wisdom is the result of humility. When we remember who we are and who God is, we will also remember where knowledge comes from and we will seek His help to assimilate the facts we’ve accumulated.

decisions. She becomes trapped by her own experience and her own ability to think through an issue. The problem with this, of course, is that our experience will always feel like it is enough. Our insight will always seem accurate because we simply cannot know what we don’t know. A fool’s confidence in her own perspective is also why she doesn’t receive instruction—from God or other people. She doesn’t receive instruction because she doesn’t believe she needs it. She’s not intentionally rejecting insight. She’s not intentionally embracing ignorance. She just thinks she’s fine. She’s satisfied with her own mind.

The humble person recognizes that she “lacks wisdom” and so she is not afraid to “ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach.”3 And in so doing, she becomes wiser still.

So instead of asking “Do I deserve this gift?” humility teaches us to ask, “What has God given and what responsibility do I have because of it?” And by doing so, humility changes the frame of reference entirely. Suddenly we are no longer at the center; God is. Suddenly our sense of entitlement or guilt no longer drives our choices. Suddenly everything is a gift and everything has purpose.

Proverbs 16:9:

“The heart of man plans his way, but the LORD establishes his steps.”

Pride tells us that all we have to do is organize well enough, plan effectively enough, and work hard enough and we can achieve our dreams. Humility teaches us that it was never up to us in the first place. The same God who gives us our desires is the God who orchestrates how, and whether, those desires come to pass. And the hard truth is that they may not.

“But watch yourselves,” He tells them in verse 34, foretelling the coming destruction of Jerusalem, “lest your hearts be weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and cares of this life, and that day come upon you suddenly like a trap.” Watch yourselves. Watch out that in attempting to escape the cares of life you don’t walk right into them.

They must put on a joyful face even when they are overwhelmed. They must have faith even when they doubt. They cannot risk being broken.

Undaunted by the lingering cold, their enthusiasm is infectious, and it’s not unusual to see their vivid petals encased in ice and snow.