30 Days of Character Development - Humility

Well, I couldn't keep up with the 30 day thing this time. As I stated in last post, I was at a conference in Jacksonville Saturday and just couldn't keep up. On Sunday hubby and I just stopped by St. Augustine on our way home and enjoyed some down time. We needed it!! :)

So today I want to complete the Humility part of our character development.

Humility is an essential ingredient of the Christian life.

• It takes humility to truly worship God. Worship is the ultimate act of declaring that God is God and we are not.
  
• A humble person has a healthy self-esteem.
  
• It takes humility to be truly honest. Pride tells lies, exaggerates, hides, pretends, and misrepresents, with the purpose of covering up our failures. Humility tells the truth even when it reveal something about us we would rather not have known
• It takes humility to obey. Obedience requires giving up my way.
• It takes humility to be teachable. Humble people are lifelong learners who do not disregard the input of others, even in areas they feel knowledgeable.
• It takes humility to serve. Serving requires us to set aside our prestige, position, and rights in order to serve others.
  
• It takes humility to wait. Waiting means allowing God to direct us instead of pushing our agenda.
• A humble person is a broken person. A person who exudes humility is usually someone who has had an experience that has broken their pride. Failure and loss has a way of stripping away pride. At the point we feel most useless, that's when God can use us most.

I can really relate to that last one. I have some situations in my life that have brought me to that place of brokenness. I have not arrived at that place of complete humility that I would like to be at but I am much closer than I would have been if it wasn't for the feelings of failure and loss that I have experienced. When we go through those difficult times in life it is always a choice of how we will allow it to affect us. We can either allow it to cripple us, become bitter, become even more prideful to cover us our failure or we can embrace humility and allow God to use it and us for His Glory and really that is just where He wants us.

Tomorrow we will start on our next Character Building trait: Contentment
(this one may hurt)