On Humility and Trust - the path to Grace

I have been recently exchanging mental blows with a number of very deep and challenged ideas. Two books have functioned as the right and left hooks of the Holy Spirit: "True Faced" by Bill Thrall et al (always wanted to say that) and "Humility" by Andrew Murray. My ego is deeply wounded, but my heart is healing nicely (and all this is good, come to find out).

Tracer thoughts:

- "It is not sin that humbles us most, but grace."
- "His humility is our salvation. His salvation is our humility"
- "Humility is the only soil in which grace takes root; the lack of humility is sufficient explanation of every defect and failure."
- "Nothing is more natural and blessed than to be nothing"


To start, here is a fantastically trembling concept from Andrew Murray. He describes two motives which urge us to humility: one is as a sinner and the other as a believer. I was intimately familiar with the first - it appeals to the fallen state, calls for reprentance and admitting we are broken. It is painful - but the pulpit instructs us this is right and good. For this reason I have walked through that process of admitting sin many times. This has lead me to adopt the erroneous ideas that "perhaps we must keep sinning to remain humble" and that "the strength of self-condemnation is the strength of humility." This is so wrong because of the second motive - which leads to grace. It is sadly almost entirely ignored by the pulpit. The distinction is clearly stated thus: "...if humility is to be our joy - we must see that is viewed not just as the mark of shame because of sin. It must also be understood apart from all sin as a covering with the very beauty and blessedness of heaven and Jesus." Humility is not shame! What a delight!

True Faced describes the Christian life in terms of two "rooms." Every Christian is faced with the choice either to please God (room #1) or trust God (room #2). At face value both options seemed good to me, as the Bible makes it clear we are to do both. I was shaken to realize that the first is an effort-based approach to God and was the room I was living in as a Christian!

The whole matter is further complicated because of the lack of importance our pulpits lend to humility as a lifestyle. I cannot recall hearing a sermon ever, which culminated in a call to living a life of steady humility (beyond repentance). Humility is a good thing, they say - but never have I heard a clarion call to take upon myself a lifestyle of humility. This is all the more terrifying as the implications and necessity of such a life for walking with God thunder into realization in my heart. Murray explains, "Humility is the only soil in which grace takes root; the lack of humility is sufficient explanation of every defect and failure." As I think back to the fall of Lucifer and the fall of man I am sobered at the prominent role of pride. I think I must second St. Augustine's assessment that pride is the root of all sin.

The door to the second room (in the tasteful "room" metaphor I borrow from Bill Thrall) is opened with the doorknob marked "humility." (only the humble can trust) It is a frightening room in which all masks are markedly absent for they are not needed! Rather than striving through personal effort (sin-management theology) to be all God wants me to be, in this room I am bidden (and wonderfully freed) to humbly trust God and live out of who He says I am (though it is not yet fully realized). I have always viewed my sin as a piranha-filled moat which "separated me from my God." He stood on the far side and genuinely loved me, but before I could get close to Him I had to clean up my sin. By contrast, the room of grace features my sin as a huge pile of crap in front of me with God standing by my side looking at it and working on it with me. I have always been afraid that if I believed in sin without shame I would give myself license to sin. I feared I would adopt the lifestyle of sinning more that grace may abound. This has been so far from the reality thus far. My heart has collapsed in such grateful relief that I am loved in my sin. I have been required to trust Him in a deeper way than ever before. He is with me. I can admit my sin. He knows my sin. I trust Him. I begin to glimpse for the first time ever that I am redeemed as a believer and yet still being redeemed. The humility and trust we are called to make this impossibility possible.

I hope to realize this statement one day and live it out: "Man's chief care, his highest virtue, and his only happiness, now and throughout eternity, is to present himself as an empty vessel in which God can dwell and manifest his power and goodness." On that day, I will truly rest.


If you want to think, read either of these books. If you want to be challenged, read them together.