Humility

Pride is a sin, it is also the root of all other sins.* I believe that if you strip a person of their pride, you take away their ability to sin. After all, the only person to live entirely devoid of pride is also the only person to have never sinned. However, he also possessed all of the other virtues as well, so we cannot attribute his perfection solely to his humility. Regardless, I maintain that perfect humility cannot exist without sinlessness and sin cannot exist without pride.   

Sin consumes, it takes what it wants regardless of the consequences. Pride says it’s ok to misbehave, you deserve it, you have earned the opportunity to be bad for once. Pride tells the man who screams abuse at his wife that he is still a “good person” because he is more loving than the man next door who beats his wife. But meeting this standard of “Good” is like scoring 100% on a quiz because you were the one who came up with the questions. It’s meaningless, because the moment we fail to measure up to it, we simply use a different ruler. In other words, we find someone else who behaves even worse to compare ourselves to. Because in our minds, as long as there is someone worse, we must be doing ok.

But this idea is poison, and it will lead us to death if we follow it. Because the true standard that we must meet is not “better than that guy” it’s “Perfect” and none of us measure up.

“I will make justice the measuring line and righteousness the plumb line; hail will sweep away your refuge, the lie, and water will overflow your hiding place.” (Isaiah 28:17)

Christ is the only one to meet the standard of perfection. That is why he is the only other person we should compare ourselves too. Because if you compare yourself to perfection, you will realize that you fall short and you need help. A person can only accept Christ after they realize this fact.

“For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.” (Romans 3:23-24)

As Christians, we try our best to imitate Christ as closely as possible, and when we look back at the example Christ set for us during his time on earth, we see that he never once grew prideful. Rather, he humbled himself to the point of death.

“Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children.” (Ephesians 5:1)

“And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.” (Philippians 2:8)

Sadly, we are all prideful. How could we not be? The only person involved in every aspect of a person’s life is themself. It is inevitable that we will occasionally (if not constantly) become focused on ourselves.

 So, if pride is such a problem, how do we get rid of it? Should we be constantly reminding ourselves of our own mistakes and shortcomings in a effort to avoid pride? 

 Absolutely not.

Humility is not self-pity, neither is it self-hatred. These things are pride’s attempt to disguise itself as humility. Humble people don’t look down on themselves, they are simply not concerned with themselves. They don’t waste time thinking about how great they are or how miserable they are. They would rather focus their time and energy on loving other people. 

I say “loving” other people instead of simple “thinking of” other people because love really is the natural result of humility. A humble person has no need to wish ill upon anyone. Malevolence toward others only exists with pride for oneself. Either by considering others to be lesser, inferior creatures and deserving of whatever misfortune may befall them (Which is pride in is purest and most wretched form) or from the desire for revenge after feeling that one has been wronged in some way. At first glance this may appear as nothing more than a desire for justice but is really pride telling the person who has been wronged that their own misfortune is somehow worse and more in need of correction than the misfortune of others. Any who doubt this need simply ask themselves if they feel the same desire for justice in a dispute that has no effect whatsoever on them. 

At worst, a humble person might feel indifferent toward those around them, but that is only if their humility is accompanied by a large amount of nihilism and apathy for existence. This, however, is a level of apathy I have only seen manifested in indoor cats and I do not think human beings are capable of reaching without the help of very strong medication. 

Humility is absolutely crucial for personal growth. Pride is unwilling to admit any need for improvement. And if you are going to improve yourself, you have to first admit that there are ways you are not perfect. Now, hopefully, nobody in this world believes that they are a completely perfect person. I can only imagine how insufferable a person like that would be. However, I also doubt that there is anyone who is completely humble. This just shows that humility and pride, while they are opposite, both exist inside every person. They cannot, however, occupy the exact same space inside the mind. For example, someone can be prideful about their intelligence and humble about their appearance. They could also be prideful about their appearance one minute. Then, after realizing that they are prideful, let go of their pride and become humble. It is impossible, however, for a person to be both humble and proud at the same time about the same aspect of themselves. 

Discovering pride in yourself and then subsequently seeking humility can sometimes lead to an endless cycle. Because once you have let go of your pride, you may find yourself becoming proud of your ability to be humble, and everything repeats. The only way out of this cycle is to realize how ridiculous it is and refocus your attention on the things that actually matter. C.S. Lewis points this out in his book “Screwtape Letters” 

“Your patient has become humble; have you drawn his attention to the fact? All virtues are less formidable to us once the man is aware that he has them, but this is specially true of humility. Catch him at the moment when he is really poor in spirit and smuggle into his mind the gratifying reflection, 'By jove! I'm being humble!', and almost immediately pride—pride at his own humility—will appear. If he awakes to the danger and tries to smother this new form of pride, make him proud of his attempt—and so on, through as many stages a you please. But don't try this too long, for fear you may awake his sense of humour and proportion, in which case he will merely laugh at you and go to bed.”

- C.S. Lewis “The Screwtape Letters”

If you are unfamiliar with the book “The Screwtape Letters” You may be slightly confused, let me explain. The book is a series of letters from one demon to another about how best to tempt a man they call the “patient”. It is a fantastic book and I highly recommend everyone read it.

How do we remain humble?

Since pride and humility can both be found within every human being. It is not exactly a simple matter to choose humility over pride. When you root out one source of pride and discard it, another may simply take its place. I have already stated that humility is necessary for self-improvement. Self-improvement, however, can also cause pride to arise. So should be then choose never to attempt to better ourselves so that we can avoid becoming prideful? In one sense, yes, but in a more real sense, absolutely not. We must not try to improve ourselves for our own sake. What I mean is that our focus should not be on ourselves (that is the definition of pride) but rather we should focus on God (or at least some form of a greater good) and let him work in us. God is perfect, and if you fix your eyes on him, it seems ridiculous to waste time thinking of yourself. 

When someone is learning to ride a motorcycle, they are taught to look at where they want to go, not the pothole you are trying to avoid. Because if you look at the pothole, you will hit it every time. The same is true for our lives. You will move toward whatever you are aiming at. If your goal is to avoid pride and make yourself perfect, you will end up falling into pride and sin. If you make God your focus, you will be constantly moving closer to perfection. 

“humility isn’t thinking less of yourself; it’s thinking of yourself less.” 

- Rick Warren**

*The only possible exception to this rule being the sin of Idolatry. However, in most cases I believe that Pride is still at the root of Idolatry because when someone makes an Idol to worship, they are still focusing on themselves. They would not have made the Idol if they did not want to worship it. Or, at the very least if they did not on some level think worshiping it would bring them greater benefits than worshiping God.

** Lot’s of people think this quote is from C.S. Lewis. It is actually from Rick Warrens 2002 book The Purpose Driven Life. Do not take this as a recommendation of The Purpose Driven Life. If the rest of the book is like this quote, I’m sure it’s fantastic, but I have not read it.