Quotes About Humility

It seems that God arranged the most humiliating circumstances possible for His entrance, as if to avoid any charge of favoritism.

Jesus gave a vivid object lesson his last night with the disciples by washing their feet, like a servant. Parents know the self-giving principle by instinct as they pour their energies into their self-absorbed children. Volunteers in soup kitchens and hospices and mission projects learn this lesson by doing.* What seems like sacrifice becomes instead a kind of nourishment because dispensing grace enriches the giver as well as the receiver.

From Jesus I learn that, whatever activism I get involved in, it must not drive out love and humility, or otherwise I betray the kingdom of heaven.

The Christian knows to serve the weak not because they deserve it but because God extended his love to us when we deserved the opposite. Christ came down from heaven, and whenever his disciples entertained dreams of prestige and power he reminded them that the greatest is the one who serves. The ladder of power reaches up, the ladder of grace reaches down.

Along with Chesterton, I've had to take my place among those who acknowledge that we are what is wrong with the world. What is my snobbishness toward my childhood church, for instance, but an inverted form of the harsh judgment it showed me?

Lord, if you can't make me thin, then make my friends look fat," humorist Erma Bombeck once prayed.

In other words, the proof of spiritual maturity is not how 'pure' you are but awareness of your impurity. That very awareness opens the door to grace.

As a Jewish rabbi put it, A man should carry two stones in his pocket. On one should be inscribed, 'I am but dust and ashes.' On the other, 'For my sake was the world created.' And he should use each stone as he needs it.7-11

The proof of spiritual maturity, Tolstoy contended, is not how "pure" you are but awareness of your impurity. That very awareness opens the door to grace.

In sum, I would far rather convey grace than explain it.

When I am tempted to complain about God's lack of presence, I remind myself that God has much more reason to complain about my lack of presence.

who are we to sit in judgment of God's moral government of the universe?

Grace is not about finishing last or first; it is about not counting.

Self-sufficiency, which first reared its head in the Garden of Eden, is the most fatal sin because it pulls us as if by a magnet away from God.

unless we learn dependence we will never experience grace.

When I ask, "Tell me the first word that comes to your mind when I say Christian," not one time has someone suggested the word love. Yet without question that is the proper biblical answer.

It occurs to me, in fact, that laughter has much in common with prayer. In both acts, we stand on equal ground, freely acknowledging ourselves as fallen creatures. We take ourselves less seriously. We think of our creatureliness. Work divides and ranks; laughter and prayer unite. Finding God in Unexpected Places(245

Dependence, humility, simplicity, cooperation, and a sense of abandon are qualities greatly prized in the spiritual life, but extremely elusive for

La única sabiduría que podemos esperar adquirir es la sabiduría de la humildad. La humildad no tiene límite. —T. S. ELLIOT

Indeed, how could we experience grace at all except through our defects?

Humility is the real Christian virtue," says Nouwen. "When we come to realize that . . . only God saves, then we are free to serve, then we can live truly humble lives.

Why are we here? God wants us to flourish, and paradoxically we flourish best by obeying rather than rebelling, by giving more than receiving, by serving rather than being served.

From Jesus I learn that, whatever activism I get involved in, it must not drive out love and humility, or otherwise I betray the kingdom of heaven. The Jesus I Never Knew (244 – 45)

Jesus' prayer for Peter shows the same pattern in sharp relief. Satan partially got his way with Peter, sifting him like wheat. But in answer to Jesus' prayer, the sifting rid Peter of his least attractive qualities: blustery self-confidence, a chip on his shoulder, a propensity to violence.