Friday, February
3, 2017
If you are
wise and understand God’s ways, prove it by living an honorable life, doing
good works with the humility that comes from wisdom. James 3:13(NLT)
I was once told by someone
quite wise that the moment you believe you’ve finally got humility down-pat is
the same moment you can be sure it has escaped.
Country singer/songwriter Mac
Davis wrote a tongue-in-cheek song 20 years ago about humility. Some of the lyrics:
Oh 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.
I can't wait to look in the mirror, cause I get better looking each day.
I guess you could say I'm a loner, a cowboy alone,
tough, and proud.
I could have lots of friends if I wanted, but then I wouldn't stand out from the crowd. [ii]
I could have lots of friends if I wanted, but then I wouldn't stand out from the crowd. [ii]
Of the people I’ve known whom
I could describe as humble,
the most notable characteristic is that they do NOT stand-out in a crowd. Like Jesus, intent on washing his disciples’
feet, bent over a basin of water, you’re lower than everyone else, and how can
you see that in a crowd?
There are a number of life
pathways that seem to chew up humility and spit it out with contempt. Politics, Hollywood, and Wall Street come to
mind. And, oh yes, lest I get too
dishonest here – pulpits of any kind tend to destroy humility. From the smallest of churches to the CEO’s of
major charitable fundraisers and mega-church pastors, humility takes a beating. To paraphrase Mac Davis,
Oh Lord, it aint easy to be lowly when those folks keep puttin’ me up on
that pedestal.
James says that real humility
and real wisdom are so connected you can’t find one without the other. My friend Ossie is a walking testament to
that. Ossie always kept a low
profile. He was in his sixties when I
met him in 1990. He was pleasant, always
smiling and always ready to say a positive word about his preacher. You would have to work at disliking Ossie
McDuffie.
But it wasn’t that character
trait that bespoke of Ossie’s humility or wisdom. Those characteristics of smiling,
pleasantness and kind words can also be the show of a calculating charlatan about to stab you in the
back. The prophet warned about people
like that:
For their tongues shoot lies like poisoned arrows. They speak friendly words to
their neighbors while scheming in their heart to kill them. Jeremiah 9:8(NLT)
The true proof of humility
and wisdom is what you find out later.
One look at my friend Ossie
and you could tell he was strong. But, I
never knew, even with all the conversations we had, that he was a great baseball
player in his youth. (It was supposed by
one who knew him way back in the sandlot days that a few of those balls he
launched over the outfield fences have yet to land!)
And in the six years I was
his pastor I never knew he and his wife, Dot, were feeding breakfast to their
Sunday School class (and several other classes) every week. The kids would come in like locusts because
it was the only breakfast they got each week.
In my estimation, Ossie McDuffie’s
humility wasn’t breathtaking because he didn’t speak-out; truth be told, if he
had an opportunity he knew how to speak, and loudly (so did Jesus when there
were Pharisees or moneychangers in the Temple!). His humility and wisdom were so evident to me
because every time I heard him speak it was always about how grateful he was
that Jesus saved his poor, wretched soul, or something good about somebody
else. And then his actions always
matched what he said.
I don’t think you have to be
a doormat to be humble. But, sometimes
humility will include laying down your life for a friend. And I always had the strong belief that, if
it came to that, Ossie McDuffie would have done that for me.
For You Today
Wisdom
manifests itself in humility, and true humility is very wise!
NOTES
[ii]
Written
by Mac Davis • © Warner/Chappell Music, Inc, Universal Music Publishing
Group, BMG Rights Management US, LLC
