Can You Pursue Humility?

 I don't think anyone has an easy time being humble. Certainly some have this virtue and necessary quality come easier, but I would doubt it comes easy to anyone.

That said, I think about my struggle for humility and feel stuck.  

One of the desires in my soul is to be known and to be known for the right things.  My reputation is something I protect and I don't think that it's wrong. Proverbs 22:1a says, "A good name is to be chosen rather than great riches..."  

Plus, as a radio broadcaster my position is public.  Sometimes the job is called "Radio Personality".  My job is to be heard and known.  I somehow have to humbly think everyone should listen to me and then work to make that happen.

Can you see my plight?  I want humility and at the same time my soul wants to be known as humble.  Is that desire even humble? Can you relate even if your job isn't to hope more people tune in to listen to you today than yesterday?

What a confusing thing.  I guess what I'm trying to wonder is: Can one aspire to humility and, if so, how?

"Humility is so shy.  If you begin talking about it, it leaves." -Tim Keller

Humility is a mysterious thing to pursue.  This is especially true when it feels that humility runs further away when you focus on her.  And if she isn't running she begins to feel less like you and more foreign to all you are.  And can you even know she's been attained if you do indeed catch her?

"... 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 awakens 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 as you please." -C.S. Lewis in The Screwtape Letters chapter 14.

The cycle exists in my life.  The moment I see humility in my life she magically is replaced by her ugly and unwanted houseguest of an opposite, Pride.  

"Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?" Romans 7:24

Perhaps, pastor Rick Warren was right when he synthesized Lewis' Screwtape Letter on humility into a favorite sentence of mine: "Humility is not thinking less of yourself but thinking of yourself less."  Perhaps, thinking about humility is good but thinking of my humility is wrong.  Maybe the way to pursue humility is to only pursue it in the person of Christ. 

"Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves.  Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.  Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who though He was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself taking the form of a servant..." Philippians 2:3-7a

See, this humility is only mine In Christ Jesus.  Looking for it on its own is a chasing after the wind.  And even though I see and know this truth getting and displaying humility is still a struggle.  

Perhaps my strategy of should be less one of chasing humility and more of evicting Pride so her more beautiful opposite, Humility, can shine in that strange, unassuming beauty that is hers and hers alone.

"And He said to them, 'This kind (of demon) cannot be driven out by anything but prayer." Mark 9:29

I in the fourteen years of writing in this blog have tried to end with some sort of a charge toward you, the reader, to do today.  Though I'm betting your desire for humility and struggle for her feels a lot like mine, I won't end with a charge but a request for a favor.  Pray for me to have humility and pray that God will be gentle in helping me evict pride today.