Humble Roots: How Humility Grounds and Nourishes Your Soul

by Hannah Anderson

much of our emotional instability is rooted in pride. Not simply pride in our intellect or our physical bodies, but a pride that prioritizes our emotions as the source of truth. To understand this, we need look no further than to our cultural fixation with emotional authenticity. Authenticity, as we’ve come to understand it, celebrates “telling it like it is” and encourages you to “be true to yourself.” But today, being true to yourself doesn’t mean making an honest evaluation of yourself; it means embracing your emotional experience of the world as truth.

Because God’s judgment is paramount, I do not have to worry about my friend’s judgment of me. Instead of responding out of anger, I can rest in God’s judgment of me through Christ. Instead of responding to the pain of being misunderstood, I can rest in the fact that God understands me even better than I understand myself. And instead of rushing around to convince everyone of my upstanding character, I can rest in God’s ability to vindicate (or correct) me. And suddenly I am freed from anger, pain, and fear. Suddenly I am free to respond to difficult circumstances from a place of control and grace. Suddenly I’m free to see the world from a perspective larger than my own heart.

the basis of faith is not how you feel about your faith but the object of your faith.

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.