Humble Roots: How Humility Grounds and Nourishes Your Soul

by Hannah Anderson

Generally speaking, men are physically stronger than women and so their natural temptation would be to use their strength to control women. We see this every time a man physically abuses or assaults a woman. We see it every time a man uses his power to harass or intimidate a woman. But we also see it every time a man walks away from a woman who is pregnant with his child. When he abandons her, he is taking advantage of the fact that an infant grows inside its mother and not its father. In a broken world where might makes right, the physical makeup of a man’s body gives him an advantage that a woman will never have.10 To compensate, women may be tempted to capitalize on the one thing they have that men want. A woman may not be as physically powerful as a man, but she alone has the capacity to bear life. Her fertility (and by extension her sexuality) is a potential source of power. Because men desire her, she will be tempted to objectify herself to capture their attention. Instead of deriving her worth, value, and authority from being made in God’s image, she will be tempted to derive it from men. 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.

And the very things that were given to unite us—our biological differences—now divide us. The problem is so real and so dangerous that Christians often feel the need to establish standards of deportment for men and women. We tell women they must dress a certain way and make exacting pronouncements about what is modest and what is not. We tell men they must not have female friends, confirming for them that all women are attempting to control them through their sexuality. We tell both to be suspicious of the other, always looking for the deeper motive behind a gesture, a look, or an outfit.

So too, we can construct regulations about what we should or shouldn’t put in our bodies or what we should or shouldn’t put on our bodies or where we should or shouldn’t go with our bodies; but these regulations won’t make us ethical people. These regulations can’t heal the divide between men and women. These regulations cannot bring peace to the gender wars.

Ultimately the Colossians’ pride was revealed by what they were looking at, by what had captured their attention. Instead of being concerned with eternal realities, they were concerned with regulating temporary realities. Instead of being consumed with Christ’s glory, they were consumed with their own. But it is only by beholding Christ that we are changed. It is only by beholding Christ who Himself took “on the form of a servant” that we learn to serve each other. We do not break the cycle of manipulation and control by trying to regulate male/female relationships. We break the cycle by turning both men and women’s eyes to Christ. “If then you have been raised with Christ,” Paul continues, “seek the things that are above, where Christ is.… Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on the earth.” And when we do, when we see “Christ who is our life,” we are humbled. And it is this humility, not pride, that changes us. It is this humility, not pride, that makes us ethical people. And it is this humility that enables us to answer the call in the very next verse to put to death “sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness.”13

Because it is humility, not pride, that leads to purity. Once we are humble people, we won’t need external regulations to force us to sell “pure honey.” We will be people of honor who are safe with one another; we will put away “anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk.”14 Once we are humble people, we will no longer use our bodies to compete with each other because we will have put on a “new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator.”15 Once we are humble people, men will no longer feel the need to prove their dominance and women will no longer feel desperate to be physically desirable. We will use our bodies to serve each other. And our love for one another will be pure.

If I just study long enough, I can finally figure out the hidden meaning of an obscure verse that will unlock the entire Bible.

We research and gather facts and peek around every corner for the “real” answer. We become suspicious and never take anything at face value because the stakes are simply too high. What if we get duped?

We follow Augustine [in saying] ‘I believe in order that I might understand.’”7 By referring to Augustine, Belcher is not advocating belief apart from reason; he’s advocating “epistemological humility”—accepting that our minds are limited.8 It’s not that truth doesn’t exist. It’s not even that human beings can’t know truth. Humility simply leaves room that my understanding of a situation could be wrong. Perhaps I don’t have all the facts; perhaps I’ve been influenced by my cultural presuppositions to believe that a tomato is a vegetable; or perhaps I’m simply a limited human being. And because I am, my faith cannot rest on my own knowledge. My faith cannot rest on my ability to understand. In other words, epistemological humility leaves room for grace.

seventeenth-century pastor and hymn writer Isaac Watts describes a person with such a “dogmatical spirit” and notes that it leads to arrogance of mind.… Every one of his opinions appears to him written as it were with sun-beams; and he grows angry that his neighbour does not see it in the same light … he tells them boldly, that they resist the truth, and sin against their consciences.9 In other words, in order to prove himself “right,” the dogmatic man must prove everyone else wrong.

If God accepts us based on our being right about every issue, then we must fight to prove ourselves right; but if God accepts us based on our being right, then none of us have any hope. If, however, God accepts you based on Jesus’ being right, then you are safe.

You don’t have to worry and fret and stay up late searching out every possible detail before you make a decision.

In other words, humility teaches us to be less concerned with knowing the answers and more concerned with learning the answers.

As consumers, we want to eat fresh tomatoes both in and out of season. We want to walk into our local grocery store any time of the day, any day of the week, and pick up a red tomato. We want the certainty of knowing that a tomato is always within reach. In much the same way, we want the certainty of knowing that the answers to life’s questions are always within reach. When a problem or choice presents itself, we don’t want go through the growing process; we want an answer immediately.

One reason so many people who’ve grown up in the church seem so immature—so green—is because their faith has not been given space and time to mature naturally. When we are fixated on the goal of “red” tomatoes, we are tempted to prioritize hearing certain phrases or seeing certain religious practice. When questions come, we offer prepackaged, simplistic answers, and unwittingly teach others to find answers this way themselves.

Instead of seeking certainty, we must teach them to follow Jesus in the midst of uncertainty. This doesn’t mean neglecting their spiritual ABCs—Bible knowledge, prayer, and community—but it does mean that we must be comfortable with the process of development. We must create space for the questions and doubt that lead to growth. But to do this, we must be comfortable with questions and uncertainty ourselves.

We have at our disposal both tangible and intangible resources of time, money, talents, intelligence, education, influence, and family. But how we choose to engage these resources will determine whether we thrive or struggle in the world. So how do we engage our own resources with humility? How do we honor these gifts? What would it look like to be “resourceful” people?

Because pride convinces us that we are more significant than we really are, it also convinces us that we deserve a certain experience of the world; and when something disrupts that, our pride reveals itself by complaining.

Most of us don’t have the opportunity to complain about luxury travel or Michelin-starred dinners, but we still find ways to signal our superiority. We complain about the struggle to be understood by others (superiority of uniqueness). We complain about keeping our new white leather couch clean with young children (superiority of affluence). We complain about how lonely it is to be a leader in ministry (superiority of influence). But as unfounded as our stress may be, we still feel it. In that moment, our complaint feels entirely valid. And it feels valid because we actually believe ourselves worthy of a different experience. We fail to recognize how much we already enjoy because we assume we deserve it or because we’ve earned it. We are blind to our own privilege.

In its most basic sense, privilege is the reality that some people have access to more resources through no effort of their own, and some people have access to fewer resources through no fault of their own.

The problem with privilege is that we rarely see our own. Because we only know our own experience, we rarely recognize how much we have been given and how much those gifts have smoothed our way. We also fail to remember how much we have inherited from past generations.2 While our grandparents fought oppressive regimes, we’re the ones who enjoy freedom. While our parents worked entry-level jobs, we’re the ones who enjoy the profit. And yet, we did nothing to arrange the circumstances of our birth or childhood. Naked we came into the world and naked we will return.

No, gratitude born from humility is not a gratitude rooted in having more than someone else. It is a gratitude rooted in having anything at all. Instead of comparing what you have with other people (either more or less), humility teaches you to compare what you have now with what you had when you entered this world. You entered this world with nothing. You didn’t even have clothing on. Your very existence is a gift and everything that you have or have ever had is a gift as well.

For Jesus, childhood embodies humble dependence. Being born again is not simply a fresh start; the language of childbirth also illustrates how we are to humbly depend on God for life. We are to depend on Him the same way a child depends on his mother for life and nourishment. It’s not surprising, then, that this is exactly how Jesus entered our world. Jesus came as an infant—helpless, naked, and vulnerable. He left the riches of heaven to become a child who owned nothing. And by doing so, He reminds us that this is the way we must enter His kingdom as well. Helpless, naked, and vulnerable. But this offends our pride. We like to believe that we are self-made men and women. We like to believe that we possess what we have because of our hard work and intentionality and focus. But we do not. All is gift. And when we finally learn this—when we finally realize that we have nothing that we have not received—we’ve taken the first step to becoming grateful, humble people who can steward our resources well.

First, simply recognizing inequity does not guarantee that we are engaging our resources with humility. It’s entirely possible that the same pride that blinds us to our privilege can lead us to feeling guilty about it. We know that we don’t deserve more than another person, but we also know that we have more than another person. And so in an attempt to deal with this guilt, we can pursue a form of asceticism, all while keeping ourselves at the center of the conversation.

And we miss the fact that even the ability to embrace a minimalist lifestyle is based in abundance.

One of the troublesome things about today’s simplicity movements is that they are often just alternate forms of consumption.… Early in life you choose your identity by getting things. But later in an affluent life you discover or update your identity by throwing away what is no longer useful, true and beautiful.7 In other words, because we have access to so many resources, we have the luxury of throwing them away without a second thought.

There are, of course, many legitimate reasons to pursue simplicity, including the desire to move through the world less encumbered and to promote ethical consumption. But pursuing simplicity itself does not necessarily make us humble or grateful people. Sometimes all simplicity does is mask our pride and self-dependence. If we take a great deal of satisfaction in how little we need, in how much we reject abundance, simplicity becomes nothing more than an asceticism that, as theologian J. I. Packer puts it, is “too proud to enjoy the enjoyable.”8 Instead of rejecting our resources, humility teaches us to receive them as gifts and to use them for God’s glory and the good of those around us.

But it is precisely the fact that our resources do not belong to us—that they have been given to us by our good, kind Master—that frees us to take risks. When everything is gift and when we learn to trust the Giver of those gifts, we learn a kind of humility that makes us fearless and productive. And instead of either hoarding or rejecting our resources, we cultivate them. Instead of burying them, we plant them.

When we consider our resources, it is not enough to simply count our one thousand gifts. Our one thousand gifts are actually one thousand opportunities: the very means by which God intends to seed His world.

In His own unpredictable way, God was using the US taxpayer to provide groceries and health care so I could learn to write. Like the servant with two talents, I wasn’t responsible for the resources I didn’t have; I was responsible for the ones I did have. And what I had was naptime and evenings.

1. I will not overlook my privilege. I will take stock of the resources that God has given me including time, talent, education, and wealth. 2. I will not feel guilty about what God has put in my hands or attempt to earn it. I accept it as a gift and rejoice in it. 3. I will allow God to lead me in cultivating these gifts for His glory and the good of those around me.

He intends for you to become a humble, resourceful person, first by receiving His gifts with gratitude and then by cultivating them for the good of those around you. But in His wisdom, He’s crafted the world in such a way that you can’t do this apart from Him. You will regularly have to take risks, you will regularly feel pressed past your abilities, you will regularly feel like the husk of your life is being broken open and your seeds scattered to the wind. But this is exactly how He means to teach you humility. This is exactly how He means to relieve you of your burden of guilt and self-reliance.

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?”

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.

And suddenly the idea that you have any control over your life seems ludicrous. So how does humility speak to our plans? How does humility teach us to navigate desires that are both fulfilled and unfulfilled? How does humility teach us to cast the lot “into the lap” but still believe that “its every decision is from the LORD”?

For some of us, it’s difficult to imagine that we can or even should pursue our dreams and desires. Some of us have been taught to surrender our lives to “whatever God wants.” The problem, of course, is that “whatever God wants” is entirely vague—the kind of truism that a lot of people say but few can fully explain. The only thing we know for sure is that “what God wants” must be in opposition to what we want.

So to plan anything—even what we think we would like to do or places we’d like to go—seems presumptuous. Who are we to tell God what we want? We, who have such corrupted hearts. We, whose hearts are deceitful and desperately wicked. After all, there are really only two choices in life: You can please God or you can please yourself.

It is precisely through the process of wanting certain things that we also learn to trust God to fulfill those desires or to trust Him when he changes them. It is precisely through the process of learning to plan that we learn to depend on a God who makes our plans happen.

Pride, on the other hand, demands to know God’s will before it will act. It balks and halts and refuses to move until success is guaranteed. In other words, sometimes the failure to plan is a form of arrogance that expects knowledge beyond our human capacity to know. When we refuse to plan before we “know,” we are asking for the same level of knowledge about our future as God has.

And it is precisely this “slow reveal” that keeps us dependent on Him. It is precisely the process of pursuing our desires and waiting for Him to either establish or alter our plans that humbles us.

At a particularly low point, when we finally had nothing to lose, when we’d finally hit the bottom, I looked at him and said with exasperation, “I wish you’d stop talking about what ‘God wants’—what do you want?!” (I’m a good wife like that.) He paused and clenched his jaw the way he does when he’s trying to decide whether he can say what he’s really thinking. Then he dropped his head and his voice became quiet, almost a whisper. “I—I just want to be a country pastor in Virginia.” “Well, then, for heaven’s sake,” I said, throwing my arms in the air, “let’s just do that.”

Part of submitting to God also means recognizing that even our desires originate from Him. As much as you cannot make yourself or orchestrate the events of your life or shape your unique personality, you can no more create the desires of your heart. Like the lump of clay on the potter’s wheel, we cannot ask, “Why have you made me like this?”5 We must simply accept how we have been made. It is entirely possible, of course, that even our God-given desires are out of alignment. It is entirely possible that Nathan’s desire to be a country pastor could have been corrupted. He could have been motivated by the need to be a big fish in a small pond. He could have been motivated by fear of another, less familiar context. He could have been motivated by a need to be needed. Or. Or God could be at work in his life. And if God was at work in his life, then his desire to be a country pastor could also have been the natural result of his gifting, temperament, and background. It could be the result of having grown up in a small, country church, and knowing almost instinctively its rhythms and rituals. It could be the result of our unique combination of gifting. It could be the result of a man who loves to garden and just wanted to go home to Virginia. It could be the result of everything God had already been doing in his life for the last thirty years. Ultimately, when you acknowledge your desires and risk owning them, you are agreeing with God about who He has made you to be. You are re...

And, ultimately, this leads to rest. When you recognize that you love something and are gifted to do it, you must also immediately recognize that you do not love everything, and you are not gifted to do everything. Suddenly you realize your own limitations; desire humbles you. And suddenly you are free from the tyranny of “keeping your options open.” You are free from the responsibility of feeling like you have to “do it all.” You are free to do only what you have been made to do.

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.

Part of the reason Nathan struggled to speak his desire in the first place was because it was risky. What if it didn’t happen? What if he failed? What if the pain of disappointment was more than he could bear? But here again, humility offers rest. If we are submitted to God’s hand, even our unfulfilled desires can be fruitful because our unfulfilled desires can be the very things God uses to draw us to Himself. When we’ve spent our lives and emotion and time and money pursuing what we believe will make us happy only to never reach it, we quickly learn where—better still, who—is the source of our ultimate joy. When we are denied the very things our hearts long for, we learn to long for the one thing that will never be denied us, God Himself. “It is good to be tired and wearied by the vain search after the true good,” Blaise Pascal, the seventeenth-century philosopher-theologian assures us, “that we may stretch out our arms to the Redeemer.”

Part of humility means trusting God with our plans and submitting to the possibility that they will not be fulfilled. We pursue certain ends, but we can’t know the future. But part of humility also means trusting God with our plans and submitting to the possibility that they will be fulfilled in ways we cannot imagine. Because we can’t know the future, we also don’t know when He will choose to bless us with abundance despite all signs pointing to failure.

Humble people understand that their work is no guarantee of success; but the humble also understand that the possibility of failure is no reason not to work.

When we limit ourselves to working when the time is right, we reveal that we are still clinging to the notion that success is dependent on our choices and our ability to control outcomes. We are still relying on our ability to make all the right decisions. We are still counting on our calculations and plans to foresee all possible eventualities.

In general, Christianity understands suffering as the interplay between a good Creator God, fallen mankind, and the supernatural forces of evil. But even within orthodox thought, there are still many different explanations for the problem of pain, none of them entirely sufficient. “Trying to solve the problem of evil,” a theology professor I once knew would say, “is like trying to pick up three watermelons with two arms.” You must hold to God’s power; you must also hold that God is good, personally invested in His creation; but you must also hold the fact that evil exists. No matter how you try to juggle it, no human answer is entirely satisfying. And at some point, you’re left wondering, “What’s the use?” At some point, you’re left wondering, “Why even try if you’re only going to get scratched and scarred?”

Like so many other things, we can respond to the brokenness of the world either in pride and self-reliance or we can respond in humility. And how we choose to respond will have direct correlation to our sense of peace in the midst of it.

Part of the way riches deceive us is that we end up caught caring for the very things that we thought would care for us.