Article June 5, 1989 Issue

Humility—it's a gift

If we find ourselves being pushed around, we probably need more humility, not less!

Eve Warwick

Egocentric faults such as pride of opinion, the rigid "I want" and "I don't want" of self-will, the craving to impress others, all conspire to shove humility right out of the picture—and along with it the serenity it generates. But even if we believe these weaknesses to be such a part of us that we can't help ourselves and we're reluctant to discard them, not one of them is true of man, who is made in the image of God.

Humility is not just another high-grade human trait; Christian Science shows us that it's a natural, inseparable element of our spiritual identity. It's a gift from God that can never be lost. We don't acquire it; we uncover and express it. And when we uncover even a smidgen of it in ourselves, where it already dwells, we begin to see the peace and poise it can bring us.

This uncovering might be described as a process of letting go—letting go of vanity, arrogance, pride, haughtiness. One dictionary defines humility as the "absence of pride or self-assertion." Humility enables us to cease trying to give God instructions and instead to ask for, listen for, then obey His directing in even the tiniest detail, no matter what new or unexpected path that directing steers us along.

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Humility—it's a gift

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