Humility Equals Dependence on God
So humble yourselves under the mighty power of God, and at the right time he will lift you up in honor. Give all your worries and cares to God, for he cares about you.
1 Peter 5:6-7 (NLT)
Humility is seeing yourself as God sees you: dark yet lovely (Song of Songs 1:5), weak yet strong (2 Cor. 12:9), and poor yet spiritually rich (2 Cor. 9:8). Humility is not thinking less of myself, but thinking less about myself. Humility is not denigrating myself by making myself out to be less than the total person that God has gifted and called me to be as his servant. Humility is admitting my weaknesses, calling out to God for help, and depending completely on his strengthening grace. Humility is surrendering myself to God the Father by allowing him to do in my life whatever he pleases irrespective of what others might say about me or do to me.
God is brilliant, yet he speaks to me in simplicity and with great tenderness. God is all-powerful, yet he waits for a response from me to his love. God is perfect, yet he does not expect perfection from me. God is all knowing, yet he never grows impatience with my ignorance and inability to understand. God is truly humble: he became God incarnate in human flesh in order that you and I might know him.
A truly humble man is sensible of his natural distance from God; of his dependence on Him; of the insufficiency of his own power and wisdom; and that it is by God’s power that he is upheld and provided for, and that he needs God’s wisdom to lead and guide him, and His might to enable him to do what he ought to do for Him.
Jonathan Edwards, Christian Quote of the Day, January 16, 2007; available from http://www.christianquote.com/.