Love and Humility

We've been talking about love and humility a lot at church lately.  In fact, listening to older sermons I'd say that's always a common theme at our church, and I feel rightly so.

It's interesting how closely related love and humility are.  Both are about putting others above ourselves.  And with both, the closer we think we are to truly loving or being truly humble, the further away from true love and humility we tend to be.  In general, whenever I'm thinking, "I'm doing a good job being loving!" what I'm thinking on a deeper level is "They sure do owe me for being such a great guy!", which is completely self-centered and pretty much the polar opposite of love. In the same way, the more humble we think we are the more prideful we are of our imagined humility.

But really, both of those are just human nature, aren't they?  How can we as humans truly love without receiving it in return?  We get tired and just worn out trying, don't we? How can we love with a love that is limitless and not at all based on rather we're receiving love or rather the person we love deserves any of it?  And how can we be truly humble when all our efforts at humility lead us to comparing it to the people around us, and consequently becoming prideful?

The only answer for those questions is that we can not. We can not show love without receiving it, and we cannot be humble when we compare ourselves to the people around us.

I believe the ONLY solution is for us to draw from the only infinite source of love, and compare ourselves to the only ultimate example of humility.  Because when we fill our love tank from God, and fulfill our need for love in HIS infinite, pure love, we can then start to love others even when they hurt us and don't love us in return. We can finally stop focusing on what we think they should be doing and focus on just loving them. And we see in God's love how to love, and what it really means to be humble. And we can get past how good of a job we think we're doing and realize the truth of Matthew 20:16, "So the last will be first, and the first will be last."


In other news, I am participating in the St. Jude Memphis Marathon Weekend to support the kids of St. Jude Children's Research Hospital! As a St. Jude Hero, I have committed to raise $1000 for the kids of St. Jude. I feel that this is a very noble cause, and would like to ask you personally to help me support St. Jude by donating today at http://fundraising.stjude.org/site/TR/Heroes/Heroes?px=2006882&pg=personal&fr_id=3631.

Your donation helps by ensuring that no family ever has the burden of having to pay St. Jude for anything. It also ensures that St. Jude is able to continue changing the way the world treats childhood cancer and other deadly diseases through its research.