Just finished reading Humility: True Greatness by C.J. Mahaney. It is a short, but excellent book. It’s packed with good content and written in a simple conversational tone. Listen to what he writes on the topic of beginning your day acknowledging your need for God (an exercise in humility):
I’ve learned to make statements to God about my dependence upon God, and in this way I’m humbling myself before God.
This is a simply a strategy for taking control of the thoughts we allow in our mind. In his excellent book Spiritual Depression, Martyn Lloyd-Jones asked, “Have you realized that most of your unhappiness in life is due to the fact that you are listening to yourself instead of talking to yourself?” That’s profound, and it’s true.
Take a moment to review and examine your pattern of thinking from yesterday. Did you spend more time speaking truth to yourself, or was most of your time spent listening to yourself? Most of us spend more time listening to lies than we do speaking truth to ourselves. And the listening process usually starts as soon as we get up. The alarm has rudely interrupted the gift of sleep, and the listening begins. As we stumble through our morning routine, we’re not directing the thoughts in our mind – we’re simply at their mercy. We entertain complaints about what happened yesterday or worries about what’s coming today. We look in the bathroom miror and assess the damage, then brood over how we feel we’re not in charge of our thinking. We’re just there.
But instead, you can declare war on pride by speaking the truth to yourself and set the right tone for your day by mentally affirming your dependence upon God and your need for Him. (p. 69-70)
Too many think of humility as equivalent to passivity. It isn’t. Humility means submitting to God and his clear purpose and will. Frequently this means exerting great force of thought or action.
It’s far too easy to just “go with the flow” in thought, and consequently in speech and action. Imagine what we would be like if we were more deliberate to humble ourselves under the word of God, and intentionally conformed our thoughts and attitudes to align with Biblical truth. The church would look much different. The world would be changed.
Mary and Joseph became very worried at this point, so they went back to Jerusalem (which was no small city) to look for Jesus. “After three days they found him in the temple courts, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. Everyone who heard him was amazed at his understanding and his answers.” (Luke 2:46-47)
