I used to be jealous of people who were full of confidence. I have a tendency to want to learn from people that I meet, whoever they may be. When I meet someone who speaks with confidence, I listen to them with respect, but often I find myself disappointed, thinking ‘they’re not saying anything special…’. I also get upset whenever they speak to me in a patronising way.
But God pointed out to me that this was the wrong attitude to have. He said that I humble myself too much. I have always thought of myself as a flawed person in many ways – perhaps because I didn’t receive a lot of praise, growing up alone – and ever since I started believing in Jesus, I didn’t think I had much to boast about, as I am sinner that is inadequate in every way in front of God. But I felt that God was saying to me, “I have blessed you richly so far, thanks to which you have grown in many ways – so I am displeased whenever you belittle yourself like that”.
To give an example, not being fluent in English is quite inconvenient, which unfortunately is the situation I found myself in when I first came to the UK at the age of 40 to evangelise, after having served God in Korea for most of my life. There are so many opportunities that I could have taken had I been good at English – thanks to the fact that a relatively younger generation of Christians gather at our church, I could have met up with other pastors or ministers in the UK and actively seek ways to participate in ministry with them. But every time such an opportunity presented itself, I hesitated, thinking “but my English isn’t that great …”. This happened quite frequently, but on a few occasions, God told me quite strongly, “don’t say that you’re not good at English from now on” – in the same way that he rebuked Moses when he told God “I am slow of speech and tongue”.
Arrogance is a huge problem, but God also does not wish for us to belittle ourselves, in other words, to show false humility. While I still seek to learn from those that I meet, I don’t purposefully belittle myself for the other person.
Out of all the people that appear in the entire bible, Jesus Christ was the humblest. Jesus himself said that he didn’t come to be serve, but to serve. In Philippians chapter 2, Paul encouraged the church of Philippi to learn from the humble attitude of Christ Jesus. Despite all this, throughout his live Jesus displayed the perfect form of leadership. His humility was not subservient. He was confident, courageous and active. And yet he didn’t look down on those who were not educated, or those who were poor.
In the book that I am reading these days, the author says that there are Christians out there who display a false humility – and he emphasises that we need to stop being subservient and start to act like princes of a heavenly kingdom. He gave Gideon as an example. When the angel of the Lord first appeared to him, he called Gideon a “mighty warrior” who the Lord was with. But Gideon called himself the least of his family. But later when the Israelites went to war, they shouted, “A sword for the Lord and for Gideon!”. God wants to elevate us to be his co-worker. We need to re-learn the meaning of humility from our Lord.
“Do not let anyone who delights in false humility disqualify you for the prize.” (Colossians 2:18a)
