Article June 4, 1955 Issue

THE IMPORTANCE OF HUMILITY

LESTER G. BESOLD

A Discerning student of the Bible soon sees that humility is a quality requisite for serving God and for restoring to mankind health and harmony. It is a quality native to all the great characters of the Bible, such as Abraham, Moses, Joseph, David, and Christ Jesus. Humility was exemplified and emphasized in their lives. Other persons referred to in the Bible had to find it through bitter experience. Naaman was healed of leprosy only when he humbly followed Elisha's instructions to wash seven times in the river Jordan. When Nebuchadnezzar became humble, his sanity and his kingdom, which he had lost, were restored to him.

It was Jesus' humility which gave him the courage and understanding to reject the devilish temptations to use his God-given ability for personal gain and power. The temptations ceased with his declaration (Matt. 4:10), "Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written. Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve." Through his humble desire to do the will of his Father he overcame the cross and demonstrated the way of eternal life for mankind.

Mary Baker Eddy, speaking of humility, says in "Miscellaneous Writings" (p. 356): "This virtue triumphs over the flesh; it is the genius of Christian Science. One can never go up, until one has gone down in his own esteem. Humility is lens and prism to the understanding of Mind-healing; it must be had to understand our textbook; it is indispensable to personal growth, and points out the chart of its divine Principle and rule of practice." In this passage our Leader makes it plain that humility is essential to the understanding and practice of Christian Science.

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