“Have a humble heart.”
What does “humble” really mean?
Many of us know “humble” and “humility” as the opposite of pride.
So if you think of “pride” as considering yourself better than everyone else, you start to think that “humility” means considering yourself worse than everyone else.
But pride really means seeing all of God’s children at different lengths from God’s love – some being “more worthy” and thus closer, and others being more distant and thus less worthy.
So the opposite of pride is really seeing all of God’s children lined up in an equal line – all equally distant and equally worthy of His love. No matter what we do/say/accomplish/earn.
Isn’t that powerful?!
We are all equal. We all are equally loved by God.
Literally everyone on this earth.
Including the people you don’t like. And the people you admire. And the people who annoy you. And the people who have made choices that have brought them to terrible situations. And the people who are filthy rich and powerful. And the people who are doing amazing, inspiring things with their time.
We are all equally loved.
And we all require God’s strength to do anything.
When we realize this, when we recognize that no one is better than anyone else, and that we all are given our breath from God…
It is transformational.
Alma taught, “He that truly humbleth himself, and repenteth of his sins, and endureth to the end, the same shall be blessed”. (Alma 32:15)
True humility leads us to repentance, because we realize that we can not do anything without Him.
And so we give our hearts and our wills to Him.
We gain humble hearts.
But living in this pride-sick world, this has to be an ongoing process, right?
Rooting out the pride that creeps in, most of the time unintentionally, as jealousy, pity, division, anger, envy, hatred…
And humbling ourselves constantly by turning to God, remembering our utter dependence, and falling back (or stepping up) to our equal place in the realm of His love.
Happy Studying!
-Cali Black
2 Responses
What a beautiful definition of pride and humility. I agree that when we hear the word humility or meekness we often think of putting other people above us. But it is probably just as damaging to put people above us as it is to put people below us. I am super grateful for reading this today. Thank you!
Exactly! I think we miss that part of the definition so much, but it’s such a sneaky way to still have pride. Thanks for commenting! <3