And He gives grace generously. As the Scriptures say, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” James 4:6
“Years ago, someone told me that humility is central to the spiritual life. That made sense to me: I was proud to think of myself as humble! But this person did not tell me that the path to humility, for some of us at least, goes through humiliation, where we are brought low, rendered powerless, stripped of pretenses and defenses, and left feeling fraudulent, empty, and useless — a humiliation that allows us to regrow our lives from the ground up.”
Parker J. Palmer in Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1999) 70.
Today I find myself humbled and grateful for God’s grace. In short, things are going great, just not as I expected. Had some great calls which will result in gifts for GTP, just they won’t come on Giving Tuesday. And the Africa trip looks like it will happen, just not as anticipated, due to factors beyond my control. It’s all good, just really humbling.
So when I read this excerpt from Palmer last night about the link between humility and humiliation, it touched me. Then I thought about the fact that generosity only flows when we experence the same humbling to realize we are not the source of the gifts we share, but rather, the system through which God gives gifts to the world.
It’s a freeing realization actually. Simultaneously, for Christian workers, we must not fret about what we don’t have but use what we have faithfully. This humbling regrows us as stewards whose strength flows not from our knowledge or planning but our dependence on the grace and generosity that is in Christ Jesus.