Humility

Man acquires true spiritual humility and finds his heart when he comes to realize that he is unworthy of such a God as Christ. Fr. Zacharias

Sometimes something simple stares you in the face for so long you miss it because its part of your environment. And, just as sin is a failure to love, humility is the realization that we are nothing. We deserve nothing from God or man, we are fallible at every level of thought, word, and action, and our hearts are often darker than a moonless night in a forest or the deepest coal mine without a torch.

When we do finally have this “ah ha” moment of clarity, we are washed anew with the realization that God loves us beyond our comprehension. There is no capability within our finite minds to grasp the height, breadth, and depth of God’s love when we see ourselves for what we are. God was beaten nearly to death for me. God was mocked in my place. God was humiliated, stripped of His clothes, and nailed to a cross in my stead. And God died an excruciatingly painful death by suffocation for me. And if I remotely grasp that I am nothing, then why did God do this?

Because God loves me. In fact, everything God does is born of love. Our oft times painful circumstances, His creation, our mountain top experiences, our talents, the Holy Spirit’s indwelling, and everything we can think of has its roots in God’s infinite and limitless love.

Yes, we’ve heard the naysayer question God’s existence because He allows suffering. Such questioning is merely an extension of  rejecting mankind’s real state for the belief that men and women are basically good. This despite the historical and ongoing evidence to the contrary. Man’s choice to sin brought suffering into the world, not God. And we cannot question God’s existence by using such fallacious logic.

Yet, despite our own wretchedness, God loves us and provides a just as infinite mercy by patiently waiting for us to acknowledge Him and then willingly humbling ourselves to be conformed to Him and His will. And in this case, taking every thought captive equates to recognizing who we are, who He is, and then thinking and acting as He does which, as noted above, is always based in love.

So as we begin this morning, let us begin anew as we listen to the birds sing their praises to a loving God before they do anything else. And despite the difficulties in our lives, the real or imaginary threats to same, the limitations each of us has, and the “worries” for our little ones, let us never be too busy to forget Who loves us and to extend this love to all men in the deepest humility.