3 Ways to Be Humble

Most of the time we are quite unaware of our own pride. It usually takes another person pointing it out to us, for us to become aware of our own pride. It’s easy to spot pride in others, but it’s harder to notice it in my own life. How can I know if I have pride in my heart?

The fruits of pride are anxiety, insecurity, comparison, hunger for recognition, hunger for attention, selfish ambition, self-righteousness, jealousy, envy, resentment, stubbornness. Pride also leads us to become uncommitted, unaccountable, unsubmissive and to like to demean or put others down. Pride makes us feel superior because of what we have or do. Ouch! It hurts reading that list doesn’t it? Yeah, there’s pride in my heart, that’s for sure!

Pride also causes us to become overly self-conscious, self-critical, easily offended, easily angered and self-serving. My prideful heart makes me afraid of other people’s opinions of me, makes me ungrateful and leads me to wallow in self-pity. The more humble I become, the better my life becomes for both me and others around me. But how can I become more humble? Reading many books or acquiring more knowledge won’t make me more humble, so what can make me humble? Joseph Salomon mentions three ways that we can become more humble.

Freedom is being completely happy with my body

In today’s society, there seem to be two major options for how we should view our bodies. We can either be unhappy about our bodies or we can take pride in our bodies and show them off. Our culture teaches us that if we don’t like our bodies we should cover them up and be ashamed of them. We also learn that the solution to getting rid off the shame is to proudly show off what we’ve got. Shame or pride, those are the options. What both options have in common is that they put a huge focus on the body. Our bodies are no longer just a body but either “a showpiece” or something to be ashamed of. The reason our bodies will either give us feelings of shame or pride is simple; we have decided that our bodies define our worth. If I don’t look good that means I’m “less than”. If I look great it means I have great worth. If I look good I also need to show off skin so that others can validate my worth. This is the type of language that our current social media culture is teaching us.

Historically humans have always based a person’s value on things like beauty, power and social status, but do we really want to live according to that standard? I don’t know about you, but I know that this cultural ideal has caused me to develop body image issues over the years. When my own world view finally changed I became aware of the fact that that my worth has nothing to do with how I look, no matter what pop culture says. Today I’m no longer struggling with body image issues, I’m completely happy with my body. I’m grateful and appreciative of my body but I no longer view my body as an object that defines my worth.

Today I view my body as “a home” where my soul lives, not as a show piece that needs to be botoxed and fixed to perfection. I no longer have a need to show off skin because I no longer look for other people to give me validation. I found freedom when I stopped objectifying my own body and started seeing my body for what it is; just a body. Today I’m more interested in spending my time and energy on taking care of my soul rather than spending a huge amount of hours at the gym. My body has scars, cellulite and wrinkles, but I can honestly say that this doesn’t bother me at all. Ten years ago I would not have been happy with the scars, cellulite and wrinkles on my body.

Here’s a fact: a few years from now my body will be dead and eaten by worms in a casket. I’m sorry about giving you that gross image in your head, but I think it’s important to let that sink in. Why should I spend huge amounts of money and time on fixing up my body to look perfect when it’s only a temporary shell? I will only do that if I believe that my worth is connected to my looks. Botox will not make me a more loving person. Perfectly toned muscles will not make me a more loving person. If I take that same energy that I used to spend on obsessing about my looks and spend it on growing my character I will end up becoming a more loving person. In the end it comes down to this: What does our world need more of? Does our world need more love or more perfect bodies?

You&Me Forever

Francis and Lisa Chan have written a book about marriage called You and Me Forever. In this video Francis and Lisa talk about the chapter about humility. We are all prideful by nature, we all have a desire to have things our own way. Our pride can cause a lot of problems in marriage because when we are fighting to have things our own way, to be right and to win, it will lead to a lot of conflict. Pride gives life to bitterness, anger, arrogance and a desire for revenge in us.

The opposite of pride is humility. Humility will not come naturally for us, we have to make the choice to walk in humility. When we are humble we will consider other peoples' needs more important than our own. When you have two people in a marriage who are humble, who choose to consider the other person more important than themselves, you get a very beautiful relationship. It's natural for us to want to win and have things our own way but when we choose to walk in humility it changes everything in our marriage.

Francis Chan mentions that most of us are competitive people, but we can choose to use our competitiveness toward something good. Instead of fighting to be right we can compete in trying to outlove and outserve one another. When we stop fighting to win and rather try to beat each other at loving and serving the other person our marriage will thrive. Our goal in marriage should be to try to outdo one another in love. When our aim is to keep forgiving, loving and serving each other in marriage our relationship will be happy and healthy.