“I” Trouble

I took the test and failed.

Several months ago I was challenged to try going a whole day without using a personal pronoun; I, my, me, mine, etc. I failed. In fact, I failed within the first hour! It’s very difficult to have any conversation without “I” or “me.” (Maybe you should try this exercise?)

I now openly admit: I have “I” trouble. New glasses or contacts will not correct this type of “I” trouble. This condition is a great concern because the life of a fully devoted follower of Christ should have God the Father, Jesus his Son, and the Holy Spirit at the center – not the little trinity of “me, myself, and I.”

But there is a response to “I” trouble: Humility.

Humility is seriously maligned in our culture but it’s because it is so misunderstood. Humility is not weakness, or timidity, or an attitude of worthlessness. Humility is not an attitude of “poor me; nobody loves me, everybody hates me; I’m going to go eat worms.” That is not humility as portrayed in God’s Word.

In Philippians 2, beginning at verse 5 we find a description of humility: “Think of yourselves the way Christ Jesus thought of himself. He had equal status with God but didn’t think so much of himself that he had to cling to the advantages of that status no matter what. Not at all. When the time came, he set aside the privileges of deity and took on the status of a slave, became human! Having become human, he stayed human. It was an incredibly humbling process. He didn’t claim special privileges. Instead, he lived a selfless, obedient life and then died a selfless, obedient death . . .” (from The Message)

The best way to summarize what Scripture teaches us is: “Biblical humility is being able to look at myself and see what God sees.”

What does God see when He looks at a follower of Christ? Someone who is forgiven, restored, and adopted into the family of God; one whose brother is Jesus and who will share in the inheritance of the Son. Can you see yourself from God’s perspective?

Humility is the ONLY response to “I” trouble.