By Heather Phillips
One of the songs I grew up hearing was “O Lord it’s hard to be humble”. Every morning you could walk into the kitchen to hear a very off key, version of this song being performed with gusto, by my dad.
For those who are unfamiliar with this song about “abject humility”, it goes along the lines of;
“O Lord it’s hard to be humble
When you’re perfect in every way
I can’t wait to look in the mirror
Cause I get better looking each day
To know me is to love me
I must be a hell of a man
Oh Lord It’s hard to be humble,
But I’m doing the best that I can!”
Humility is never easy. The embarrassment that is often paired with being humbled can be mortifyingly painful. Personally, from times where I stubbornly insisted, I was right, to times where I became angry without knowing the full circumstances, there are countless occasions where I have been forced to eat humble pie.
The Bible study I am in has been going through the book of Daniel and this week we did a session on King Nebuchadnezzar and his bout of madness (Daniel 4). The theme was, “O Lord it’s hard to be humble”. By societal standards, Nebuchadnezzar had every reason to be proud. He was the ruler of one of the most powerful nations on earth. He had poured his efforts into building up his cities and their defences. He was powerful and although he acknowledged God, he also tended to think he was a god. This came to a head with a dream Nebuchadnezzar had (and Daniel interpreted) about God punishing this arrogance with years of insanity.
We can so easily fall into the same trap of pride. We live in a society where we are encouraged to be proud of what we have accomplished. Taking pride in your work or in a job well done is not a problem. Healthy pride that pushes us to want to do well, because we are doing it for God, is good. So long as when the task is done, and we do receive praise, we give glory to God. We subconsciously all want recognition for the work we have done, and we might be tempted to put more effort in if we know our name will be attached to the outcome.
One of the issues that stems in pride is that we start to chase praise. When we achieve something, and receive praise for a job well done, it can give us a desire to continue pleasing those around us. Wanting to be praised is not wrong but focusing on receiving that praise from others rather than God, is. We are working for God, not human masters, Colossians 3:23. Looking to others for that encouragement is going to give us a false sense of pride and we will very quickly forget Who empowered us to complete the task in the first place.
Secondly, when we let pride in our work or character take centerstage, we also introduce the fear of failure. If we are so intent on being perfect, we become self-reliant. We forget that God is the one carrying us, and we choose to believe that if we can’t do it by ourselves, we are not good enough. God’s grace is no longer sufficient for us, because we fear our own weakness, 2 Corinthians 12:9. Not only do we fear our own failure, but we start to fear rejection from others if we were to make a mistake. Part of humility is making mistakes and owning up to them.
In the story of Nebuchadnezzar, and in our own lives, we can always stop and give praise to God, before, during or after the fall that follows pride. With all the harm Nebuchadnezzar did in his reign, his story still ends with him praising God, and being known as one of the foreign kings that God used for the good of His people.
O Lord it is hard to be humble, so please help us to do the best that we can!