I imagine most of us have heard the phase, “There but for the grace of God goeth I.” I don’t know how many of us actually recall it with any regularity. I like to think I do but, come to think of it, maybe I should monitor it better.

After all, it’s a pretty powerful saying and not to be passed over lightly. Maybe the secular version would go something like, “I guess I’m really fortunate and thankful that I’m not in that person’s predicament.” While these are similar, they are not the same. However, I’m not here to dissect the saying(s) but to get to the general point.

I’m getting to the place where it’s time to start exploring what to do about this pride/humility thing. I’ve touched on the case that humility is something that is good and pride something with hidden (or pronounced) dangers.

Allow me to backtrack a moment, though.

I need to further contextualize. Humility is good insofar as it leads to surrender and to the knowledge that our value is from outside of ourselves. From that framework, we can develop other virtues such as compassion, patience and charity. Unfortunately, humility can also be the result of some type of imposed oppression, either from within or without. This may not manifest in humility as a virtue but as a prison from which freedom is only an unsatisfied desire. Victims of abuse may have been humbled through no effort of their own but remain powerless to live a free and humble life.

What gives?

Remember what Tim Keller said: “Humility is not thinking less of oneself but in thinking of oneself less.” A person caught in the web of oppression is trained to think less of themselves. Not a good thing. Actually a terrible thing in their case and something for the rest of us to reckon with.

So, what does a life look like that is humbly led in a state of authentic freedom?

Well, I suspect it would be hard for others to use the word “arrogant” to describe such a person. I suspect it would be hard for others to use the word “judgmental” to describe such a person. I suspect words such as “caring” and “ compassionate” and “empathetic” would be words others would use to describe such a person. I suspect a humble person would be seen as an encourager and promoter of others before self. I suspect that a humble person would be seen as having a kind heart, reserving the intellect rather than leading with it. The humble person would be seen as genuinely curious about what is important to others. Not just news, although that would be fine, but curious about another’s hopes and fears … where the rubber hits the road.

I know some genuinely humble people. More now than I did a short ten years or so ago. Not to say that I did not know humble people earlier and am thankfully close to them now but I just know many more. They are all an inspiration.

One benefit Diane and I had from our professional careers was our immersion into the lives of hundreds and thousands of people who struggled. Diane spent many years in the barrio and it never left her, even when she returned to our nice middle class home in the evening or on weekends. She was seen as a teacher (are there any better?) but she was so much more than what the public would describe as her basic role. She cared for children and families without food and clothing or phones at home. Many, many of them. Looking at those sweet faces, full of promise but short on basic needs, can only result in compassion and empathy. I spent years with drugs and violence, gang life, hunger, teen pregnancy, child abuse. Always. Sobering, to say the least. How to respond when each day saw these experiences for the both of us as normative? Raised in privilege, gifted with bright minds and other things, these experiences were truly humbling. “Why do I get to go home to peace and they don’t?” Fortunately, neither of us chose despair but found the will to keep living in their worlds. I mention this to say that, thankfully, our lives allowed us to connect with other people on the most basic of levels and to see value where often society and circumstance dictated otherwise.

Well, so much for that! All of that and $2 gets you a basic cup of coffee at the local Starbucks. Or so the saying goes.

Ok, so we benefited from a window into suffering that many in our western wealthy society don’t see or else are inured against. Yes, this thing called suffering. Or its too frequent product: brokenness. Yes, we grew in our capacities to care for others, demonstrate compassion and charity but here’s the deal: Pride is still as insidious a force as ever. If you buy the Genesis creation story, it’s the reason for the Fall. Even if you don’t want to take that story literally (a battle I’m not going to take on here), pride can be and is a cancer that eats away at humanity. (I will take that one on.) None of us are immune. Diane and I know this and we talk about it. It deserves some attention.

I have come across people who describe themselves as very judgmental. I’m not sure if they are proud of that or not. Maybe some are. I do not want to be described as judgmental, although I know that I certainly am.

Allow me to say that there is a great difference between exercising sound judgment and being something we can call “judgmental.” I think everyone reading this could probably describe the difference.

My immediate family would say that I’m less judgmental and more caring then I was ten years ago. Maybe even five years ago. Thankfully. It hasn’t been easy. I had a slow start. Raised in an overtly intellectual household where ideas and causes were given far more attention and value than basic human relationships and demonstrations of love, made later adaptation more challenging. When a child is raised without anyone telling him he is truly loved, the acquiring of deep compassion for others is more difficult. Thankfully, in my case, I had some sensitive gene from somewhere that allowed me to know that I was really missing something and that my job was to go out and find it. Still, the bad habits are deeply embedded and give themselves up kicking and screaming.

Which about brings me to the piece I wrote to the Monday morning guys.

Now, what follows is an overtly Christian piece. No getting around it. It may seem foreign to those who follow a different path or who don’t see themselves on a journey with a particular destination. It is written to nine other men who consider themselves disciples … learners with a masterful teacher … and who seek to be different in the future than they/we are now. These men are all what society would describe as accomplished. Half have doctorates. One, a former naval captain, currently employed in industry responsible for complex communication equipment. One a physician. One a theologian and missionary. One the owner of an architectural company. One a world-respected nuclear physicist. One a music minister. One a retired pharmacological scientist. One a mechanical engineer and youth group leader. One a former educational leader. You get the point. Men who live and prosper in middle and upper middle class north San Diego County. All are married. All have children except one who lost his only young adult child to suicide eleven years ago. Nearly every one has children who struggle with issues, some of whom struggle immensely. Most have battled difficult illnesses, either themselves or with close family members.

In many ways we are very typical. We celebrate many things in our lives and we get hit hard with some of the difficult things. We are largely aware of the world around us and have opinions on many things. Of those, we may agree and disagree. Some are what could be called conservative and some are what could be called liberal. All have served or are serving as leaders … in jobs and in family life. All enjoy humor but can be serious when called for. A good number, maybe not all, were athletes at some point or are still. While we share some real similarities, we clearly have different personalities, different skill sets, different natural gifts, different deficits. Actually, we don’t always agree on some points of theology, which may be surprising. Some have been Christians most or all of their lives. Others more recently. I’m the newest. Some were what could be called nominal Christians, sort of “go to church on Sunday because it was the right thing to do.” But, since, things have changed.

All subscribe to the simple phrase “Iron Sharpens Iron.” It’s a piece from Proverbs 27:17 in the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible that says: “Iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.”

While men may know this intuitively from experience in athletic competition, from the military, or in a competitive work environment, my experience is that it’s rarely invoked intentionally. We are often hard edged, protective of who we are and slow to invite sharpening. Real sharpening that requires transparency and the admission that sharpening is a good thing that requires work. But if we look at life as a journey of transformation from one thing to another, we all need sharpening. Growth just doesn’t occur in a vacuum. Cognitive dissonance resolved through insight requires embracing contrasting realities and leaving the status quo behind.

We Monday morning men (like many others) are on a kind of pilgrimage. We surrender at O Dark Thirty to arise in the dark and trudge to meet around a large table in a local church. For the first six years or so, we met from 6-7:30am. Since, it’s 6:15-7:15am. Woohoo! We share. We pray. We study and discuss. We laugh a lot and sometimes the eyes shed tears. Relationships are forged or deepened. Some are friends and gather socially outside of the meeting. Some not so much.

You may be incredibly bored by now if you’ve made it this far. But I wanted to mention all of this because it’s SO UNUSUAL!! Men have friends. Men may have friends with whom they share many interests. Men may have friends they’d lay down their lives for. Men may have friends with whom they’ve shared a whole lot of life together, the good and the bad. Men may have friends who they’d consider as close as brothers. But, very few men get together regularly to participate in iron sharpening iron. Very few men are comfortable with vulnerability and transparency. Very few men are accustomed to opening themselves to a number of others with the purpose of asking for help to manage life’s many challenges. We are a proud gender and leave it, typically, to women to share more intimate details of interior lives with their close women friends. It’s just not a guy thing to do. Typically.

But Jesus chose a group of just regular guys to train in how to live as God designed. And in ways both gentle and, occasionally, harsh, he modeled iron sharpening iron. And, to use another metaphor, he spoke about the importance of pruning to the development of robust blooms and fruit. As a plant can waste critical energy on parts that will detract from the blooms … hence benefit from pruning … so do we. At times, the pruning can be just a quick snip here and there. At others, a limb might really be dead weight or even diseased and needs to be hacked off. We joke that when the chain saws appear, watch out!

Who submits voluntarily to be snipped or chopped? Well, maybe if we’re desperate (see therapy, couples’ counseling, 12 step programs, etc…) but what if we don’t feel desperate? Life is generally OK? And here is where it gets interesting. Does this mean we don’t need pruning? We don’t really need to expose ourselves to the sharpening influence of another’s iron?

And, that brings us back full circle to my blog a few days ago that started this thread. We were in this chapter on Psalm 131, which the author of our book interpreted as dealing with humility. And, in that chapter we discussed pride and humility and the nature of pruning. Pruning as a function of discipleship and how to lead the life intended for us all along. As I say in the first part of my “letter” to them, I felt we needed to explore some deeper implications. I was not present the following week as we were camping but I heard this Monday that they spent the entire time discussing those implications. At O Dark Thirty.

Here it is. I changed the names and did a very minor edit for posting here.

Hey Gents,

While doing some regular cardio on the gym bike yesterday, I began reflecting on our morning’s discussion. As always, it was good and thought provoking. Like Don mentioned, I appreciate when those of us so-inclined share a vulnerability or admit to a frailty … thereby personalizing any theory we’re grappling with. Our group has never adopted a model of self help/therapy as we have very limited time to plow through a lot … from getting coffee and updating one another to praying and discussing. But, thankfully, we’ve always welcomed and encouraged a level of sharing joys and sorrows that are not commonplace among men in our culture. What a blessing.

I’m writing for two reasons … first, I’m not sure we really finished pulling some of the pearls out of the chapter. At least, that’s my opinion. Perhaps we’ll want to consider picking up where we left off while reading ahead to the next one in case we decide to move on. Just a suggestion. (By the way, I may not be in town … we’re adjusting some travel plans and we could leave on a camping trip or go to Idyllwild this weekend, early next week.)

The second reason is to share some things that came to me during my reflection, given that the chapter was entitled humility.

I loved how Jim spoke to us about a recent experience of something approaching humiliation (sorry, Jim, if I misheard) that resulted in humility and a deeper appreciation of how God works to shape us (prune) to become more Christlike. I know from experience how powerful this can be. I then reflected on the passage in John 8 about the adulteress facing stoning and how Jesus responded. Of course, that poor woman was deeply humiliated and worse. Her sin was exposed as lethal and her humiliation was to be followed with the ultimate sentence and painfully so. Of course, we all know how it turns out. Jesus points the finger back at the accusers and then forgives the woman, telling her to sin no more.

The sin of lust was exposed but resolved through grace, an infinitely more powerful force. And that grace was then complemented by exposing the alternative sin: hard hearts expressed as judgmentalism.

Then my mind went back to Peterson (note for the blog: the author, Eugene Peterson) sharing the tale of Faust, his deal with the devil and the greatest sin of all: Believing we deserve to have the power of God to satisfy our mortal cravings. And, we know what happened to Adam and Lucifer.

Isn’t it this sin that keeps us from being humble? That keeps us from sharing our frailties or, more pointedly, from looking inside to admit we are broken? Of course the opposite of humble is prideful. Oh, we can make noise that we humbly serve others and are basically compassionate people. But, too often, I suspect, that protects us from actually assuming the posture of those being served … as needing saving from our own attempts to maintain positions with titles or recognition in its many forms.

Why is it that lust and sex or their cousin, addiction, gets all the attention? These sins can be enormously destructive as we know and the temptations sinister. This, while we don’t open ourselves to explore how insidious pride can be and how it is manifested in so many ways … many of which are invisible to our own internal perspective? Why is it that so many Christians … followers of Jesus … resist adopting the tools necessary to actually proceed with the pruning?

I think we somehow over rely on prayer and the periodic challenges (some of which are significant and very disruptive) to do the pruning work. While I can certainly testify that these two things work and even amazingly so, I do not believe that’s nearly enough and I say that from experience. I think we need to be in relationship with other trusted followers of Jesus, to whom we give the authority to whittle away at our defenses on a regular basis. Again, from experience, I have found this kind of “long obedience” to be immensely helpful in the pilgrimage to which we are all called. It’s where the rubber meets the road. To me, it’s every bit as critical to our walk as prayer or reading scripture, attending communal worship or reading the brilliant works of people far brighter or wiser than we are. I have found, in these places (my long stint in therapy to resolve some powerful issues stemming from childhood and clinging destructively into advanced adulthood as well as weekly intentional meetings with covenant or accountability partners) that God shows up regularly and I am a remarkably different person as a result. And, I think many people who know me would agree.

No one held me accountable in my prior pre-Christian life. I, only, held myself accountable to achieving whatever standard or goal I determined was the right one. I resisted allowing others into the parts of my life I was uncomfortable with (when I was willing to acknowledge them) assuming I even understood them or was even aware they existed. Of course, I shared concerns and struggles with Diane but not even she was aware of the complete picture … and I’ve always been accused of being a sensitive guy. 🙂  As a somewhat bright and literate man, I had read thousands of books and could chat at length on a wide range of topics … from history to biology … from cosmology to economics … from theology to technology. But, that knowledge obfuscated the fact that I was broken. I have come across Christians like this.

I sometimes willingly want to fall into the trap that says surrender is just telling God, “I admit I’m prideful. I’m sorry. I admit I’m judgmental. I know that’s wrong. Please forgive me and help me to improve.” Or something like that. Not that this is bad or that God can’t work with it. My point is that I don’t believe this is nearly enough.

Which brings us back to Jim’s point in a roundabout way. The humiliation that is the direct byproduct of being faced with a Holy God is the door to grace and eternal life. When we are exposed as harboring false idols, the fact of which are often truly obscured from our conscious life, we feel guilt and shame depending upon the degree requiring pruning. Upon recognition and the plea for forgiveness … which is much more than a plea but a primal crying out … our loving God then responds with a shower of grace, the like of which is unmatched in experience.

Who, then is our model? I choose the adulteress or the woman at the well. Or Saul of Tarsus (later Paul), bent upon evil, laid flat and exposed. I will fall short because my nature, like most, is to keep me protected from such exposure, not to mention a false belief that I harbor an interior life that is largely sin-free.

The good news is that almost immediately after hearing the voice of God and fully surrendering, I felt the prayer rise up inside, requesting that he put me in the company of men who could lead me forward. This was deep calling to deep and I happened to be along for the ride. No coincidence that the doors opened up quickly and this group has been one of the most delightful results.

And, so I became acquainted with earthly gardeners, God’s hands, feet and heart, as they probe and prod, clip and even saw off pieces that need removing for the blooms to burst forward.

Humbling? Yes. On occasion, humiliating? Unfortunately … but what the heck? It never lasts, thank God!!  That Christ is pretty amazing, when we let him. 🙂

I guess that’s about it. Thanks for listening if you managed to make it this far. You guys are awesome.

Blessings,

Brad

Lord, thank you for opening the door to the kind of life you intended for us all along. While we have to give up understanding everything about life and all of creation, we can know this: life with you is infinitely better than life without you. And, yes, the pruning or sharpening sometimes hurts but you never promised it would be easy. Just good. And you are right. We need help along the way and so we pray that you would surround us with people who love and care for us and to whom we can be open, inviting them to help us see that which is not so clear to us. All in the cause of growing into healthier men and women who demonstrate many of those virtues and are a blessing to others. Amen.