Humble Roots: How Humility Grounds and Nourishes Your Soul

by Hannah Anderson

And yet, as quickly as we find ourselves working to consume, we can just as quickly find ourselves lazy; we can just as easily give up hope that there is any happiness worth finding. Remember that pride both overestimates our abilities and underestimates God. If hedonism convinces us that we can achieve happiness on our own, sloth deceives us about God’s ability to make our efforts effective in a broken world.

We often see laziness as a lack of initiative or even a lack of confidence. But it’s actually the reverse. The sluggard thinks so highly of his energy and efforts that he’s not willing to waste them. He’s not willing to expend energy unless he has a guaranteed reward. Because, in his pride, he has foolishly discounted God, he no longer has reason to believe that his work will amount to anything. So he simply cuts his losses trusting that “a little sleep, a little slumber” (24:33) will bring him rest. But not working doesn’t lead to rest. It leads to poverty and want. It leads to messy houses and broken-down churches and chaotic lives.

Perhaps the final and fullest expression of human pride is complete and utter hopelessness, a view of the world that has so dismissed God that nothing matters anymore. Because pride leads us to reject God, we end up trusting ourselves. But it is only a matter of time before we realize how misplaced this trust is. And when we do, when the brokenness of the world presses in, when we feel the weight of our own helplessness, we succumb to listlessness and despondency. Nothing has purpose. Nothing has meaning. Nothing is worth doing. Why sweep the floor? It will just get dirty again. Why prepare a Sunday school lesson? The children don’t pay attention anyway. Why pray? God probably won’t even hear me.

We may not understand it all, but we cling to what we do know. And what we do know—what Christians throughout history have clung to—is that the God of the universe does not abandon us in our suffering. We may not know why suffering happens; we may not know how to free ourselves from it; but we do know that Jesus entered our brokenness and took it on Himself.

As a pastor’s wife, I’m regularly surprised by how people behave around me. For some reason, they often feel the need to project a certain image or to protect me from their brokenness. When they do share the messier parts of their lives, they’re often uncomfortable, almost embarrassed. At first, I took this personally, but then I realized that it is more likely the product of their relationship to the church at large. For many people, the church is a place where they must keep their act together. 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. One of the main reasons we struggle to create safe communities is because we’ve underestimated God’s power in brokenness and end up trusting in ourselves. But when we do, we can never admit failure. We can never admit need. We can never be weak. But it is precisely our brokenness that humbles us, and it is precisely our brokenness that reveals God’s power.