A True Humility

Moses is referred to in Numbers 12 as the most humble man on earth. Consider Exodus 4, though, how virtuous was this humility when he attempts to evade God's plan to make him liberator of Israel? In this instance his "humility" results in God's anger. It appears that being humble is not always a favorable condition. At least in this case God seems to perfer initiative over playing oneself down. Moses did have a lot to be humble about . . .

He occupied a key position to be a leader. He had access to Pharaoh's court. He easily could have worked to politically benefit Israel. He most likely should have been respected by his people for his power position. Yet in his early adulthood he becomes a murderer in the name of 'righteousness' and loses everything that could have made him effective for God. He was now forced to leave his country, and all his potential, to spend decades as a mere shepherd living isolated in the countryside. Imagine spending 20 or so years mulling over one enormous mistake that cost you everything . . . that set you at odds with God himself. When God finally calls Moses from the burning bush, he has to explain who he is. Apparantly their communication had been inconsistent enough to warrant God explaining to Moses whom it was that was speaking.

Moses, no doubt, should have been humble. Yet, his attempt at humility in this situation leads to God's frustration and anger. And, here is where I find something contradictory to our contemporary Christian attitude: excessive humility is actually of equal arrogance to those who have no humility at all. In other words:

The arrogant believe they can do it all and therefore have no need for God.

The humble arrogant believe they can't do anything whether God chooses to help or not.

Moses in the beginning is actually not humble at all! He is so enslaved to the belief that he is nothing that he projects his own insufficiency onto God. The result is that since he was rejected as Israel's leader in his early twenties, he and more importantly YHWH through him will be rejected as Israel's leader some twenty years later.

I think we would be in error to believe that we have come very far. The number of Christians who question their own salvation is astounding. We doubt the goodness of our own hearts, and arrogantly assume, in the name of humility, that the price God paid is at least a few dollars short to assuredly merit our salvation. We take matters into our own hands and lie low, spiritually speaking, living outside the places where God has given us the ability to benefit his Kingdom. We fear God's power will be insufficient to convince the folks back home! (said with self-incrimination in my voice)

Or, how many people truly fear an open, honest relationship with God. We sin, and then hide from him. As though on the cross he didn't experience the full depth of sin's consequences. We believe that our daily betrayals somehow hold a pain or evil that he has not yet experienced!! That is the cross: there is nothing new. No sin we could commit will fill God with pain even representing the smallest fraction of what he experienced at Calvary. Yet, we seek to save ourselves and him from facing what we have done . . . from who we are!! Is this a humility of virtue? The last thing that God fears is our sinfullness. The least respect we can pay him is to be honest concerning our sin, and ourselves.

Humility is a middle ground. For too long I think, I and most Christians I meet, have treated it as the opposite pole to pride, but in this case, we simply end up in the right ditch for fleeing the left. To be humble is to keep oneself focused on God. Only in knowing him do we find our identity and come to understand what humility is. To completely deny oneself is not humble, if in that denial, we reject the power of God. God can do amazing things through us, especially as we find a true humility.

Only later in his life does the book of Numbers step in and call Moses the most humble man on the earth. This is long after Moses quit letting his own limitations blind him to God's limitless ability. Moses had learned to walk in communion with God. He had seen God's power. He ceased his questions, and became the leader that God had declared him to be.