John Bunyan, in the second part of his book The Pilgrim’s Progress, describes the time when Christiana and her companions must descend into the Valley of Humiliation. Bunyan describes that place as “a steep hill, and the way was slippery.” In other words, it’s never easy to humble oneself, and when our path demands humility of us, we can easily slip up.

What are some of your experiences in attempting to be humble? Can you recall times when your attempt to be humble just did not work out as expected? Maybe the first question should be have you ever consciously tried to be humble?

Humility can be defined as the absence of pride, just as darkness is the absence of light. We cannot become more humble by focusing on humility, as it becomes a source of pride when we believe we have achieved it. C.S. Lewis describes humility not as thinking less of ourselves, but as thinking of ourselves less. With that definition in mind, the Bible has much to say about seeing ourselves in proper perspective. Holding the biblical perspective humbles us.

Humility increases when we are willing to be humbled by God, circumstances, and others. Our sinful natures do not want to be humbled. We tend to protect our pride as though it were our best friend, but pride gets in the way of our relationship with God.

God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. -James 4:6 ESV

He resists the prideful but gives grace to the humble. He will work with us when we desire humility, but the development of humility will be painful. Despite the discomfort, we find an added measure of grace to sustain us as we suffer through the refining process.

The first step in humbling ourselves is to challenge our motives for the things we do. Whenever we see that our actions are geared to elicit favorable opinions from others, we should bring it to the Lord. We can pray something like this: “Lord, You see what I’m about to do here. Is this for Your glory or for mine? Examine my heart. Am I desiring to give You praise or keep some for myself?” It’s not always wrong to want to make a good impression, but when we make the majority of our choices based on pleasing people, we may have a pride problem. We can confess our wrong motives and commit to doing only that which glorifies the Lord and not us. That may mean staying off social media for a while, refraining from bragging about our latest promotion or vacation, and deferring the praise we get to another who also deserves it.

Being admirable as a follower of Christ is good, but how have you been challenged in your pursuit of impressing others and avoiding pride?

Another step in humbling ourselves is to evaluate our response when we are slighted, overlooked, or under-appreciated. We admit to ourselves and to God that the sting of self-pity we feel is pride demanding to defend itself. Rather than give in to it, we instead choose to embrace the opportunity to learn humility. We can pray something like this: “Father, I’m hurt and angry right now because they left me out (or didn’t appreciate me, etc.). Thank You for this opportunity to deal with some areas of pride in my life that I wouldn’t have otherwise noticed. If I’m overlooked, I take comfort knowing Christ was also overlooked, rejected, and misunderstood.”

There was a man very distant from God in a bad place, but he was not overlooked by God.

Mark 4:35-5:21

There have been many times when we have been physically far away from God. There have been times when we have been tormented by our own desires and influenced by many. But yet God is aware and cares. From the story we read, a first hand account by Peter, scribed by John Mark, Jesus was called by God to go free the troubled man.

Can you recall a season when God figuratively crossed the water to come impact you?

Learning to be more humble involves capturing prideful moments and bringing them to the Lord so they cannot grow. We allow Him to turn something harmful into something beneficial for our growth. Recognizing areas of pride is a critical part of defeating it, so we must be prepared to agree with the Lord when He points them out to us.