Humbled yourself, or Let Life Humble you.

There seems to be two clear choices in life: humble yourself or let life humble you. Most of the time due to people’s prideful nature life seems to humble us through hard and painful experiences. However, at times these painful and hard experiences that God allows us to go through to humble us, build our character, grow our faith, and teach us important lessons can also cause our hearts to harden and bitterness to sprout from within. This all stems from that pride deep in our hearts, but the danger is that “Pride goeth before destruction, And an haughty spirit before a fall.” (Proverbs 16:18 KJV). Pride will always lead to our downfall and destruction. When you walk with pride in your relationships they will break. When you walk with pride in your business it will be unsuccessful. When you walk with pride in your education you will fail. When you walk with pride in your ministry it will be destroyed. To walk the path of pride is to follow satan because “The fear of the Lord is hatred of evil. Pride and arrogance and the way of evil and perverted speech I hate” (Proverbs 8:13 ESV). Anything that God hates and opposes is the way of the devil and so by following the path that God hates you are ultimately following the way of the enemy.

Instead, we have to actively choose the path of humility for “Better it is to be of an humble spirit with the lowly than to divide the spoil with the proud” (Proverbs 16:19 KJV). When you walk with humility in your relationships they will flourish. When you walk with humility in your business it will succeed. When you walk with humility in your education you will do excellently. When you walk with humility in your ministry it will grow. When you study the kings of Israel you notice the ones that ended in disaster were the ones that were prideful of heart. To be prideful is to exalt yourself, to lift yourself up, and to go in your own way and not the Lords. To be humble is to lower yourself and to allow God to exalt you and position you according to His will. For King Uzziah “when he was strong his heart was lifted up, to his destruction, for he transgressed against the Lord his God”…(2 Chronicles 26:16 NKJV). King Uzziah decided to turn away from walking in the path of obedience to God because he had become proud of heart.

To be humble is to obey, and the greatest example given to men of someone with a humble spirit that was obedient is Jesus Christ our Lord and Saviour. “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. And being found in the appearance as a man, He humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross” (Philippians 2:5-8 NKJV). When I took my wedding vows I made a promise to my husband to submit to my husband in accordance with Ephesians 5:22 “Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord” (NKJV). Now since being on this journey of marriage I have learnt a lot in my own relationship with God, because the unity of marriage between a man and a woman directly reflects the unity of the relationship between us (the bride of Christ) and Jesus Christ. For the past 25 years of my life, I had been a single woman in the eyes of the law and the eyes of God. Of course I had grown up under the authority of my parents, but at the age of 19 years old when leaving home and moving cities I had to become Miss Independent and the choices I made for my life were the consequences I had to walk in, whether good or bad. I had the power to make my own decisions and choices for my life and I could do whatever I liked to do whenever I liked (within reason). But when making a vow to submit to somebody else I was making a vow to obey and be led by the decisions of somebody else. This is not a small decision at all. Many times, I have woken up on a beautiful morning with a wonderful plan for my day to be handed a new schedule from my husband that throws my plans upside down. Or I have come home from work tired and ready to get on with my routine to find my husband waiting at the door for us to head out somewhere other than the kitchen I wanted to be planted in. In those moments it is so difficult to take his hand and walk with him, but rather I want to turn away and walk in my own plans. But the Holy Spirit convicts me and because of the fear of the Lord I (to be honest many times reluctantly) will (sometimes eventually let’s be honest) decide to obey because through being obedient to my husband I am being obedient to God. You may be reading this and think this isn’t applicable to you because you don’t yet have a husband, but whether single (or married) you have parents, Pastors and Shepherds that you are under the authority of in the eyes of the Lord. There may be many times that your Pastor has given you a verse to apply to obey and apply to your life, but you have decided to walk in your own ways. The Holy Spirit always decides to use other people to speak into our lives and guide us, which is why satan will target our relationships so frequently, in attempt for us to avoid hearing the voice of God and to walk in disobedience. Who has God placed in your life to be a guiding voice that you have not listened to? “Hold on to instructions, do not let it go; guard it will, for it is your life” (Proverbs 4:13 NIV). The instructions that we are given by our spiritual authorities in accordance to Gods Word are the key to progressing in life. The instructions that the Holy Spirit places in our heart by praying and reading His Word are the key to life. How many times has God asked us to do something that we haven’t obeyed? How many times have we rejected Gods way and decided to walk in our own plans? To be humble is to be obedient.

I have made many bad choices for my life that has caused life to humble me through hard and painful experiences, because I have decided to disobey God and walk in my own ways. Eventually I have placed myself back onto His path because I have been humbled through the outcomes of those decisions. I believe that it is also good for us to go through hard and difficult seasons as part of the Will of God to shape us into who He wants us to be. Even when Jesus went into the wilderness the He “…was led by the Spirit into the wilderness” (Luke 4:1 NKJV), so the Holy Spirit will also lead us into difficult seasons as part of His greater plan for our lives. God will never force you to do anything, but instead will present to your options. I have found that when presented with an easy option or with a hard option, to pick the hard option, even if it leads to difficulty and struggle, because I know that God will cause me to grow from this circumstance. It is not easy to turn away from the pleasures of sin. It is not easy to leave the places you know and go to unfamiliar territories to live. It is not easy to join yourself to another person to submit to and obey. It is not easy to start something new from scratch. Whatever it may be that God is asking you to obey, it will never be easy, but it will be filled with hardship, difficulty, and struggle, but on the other side the beautiful fruits that will be produced and the blessings God will pour out onto you from making that decision to obey and to walk in humility will be far greater than being prideful and following your own way.