"H" Is For Humility

Benjamin Franklin carried a list of thirteen virtues around with him in a book, and chose a different virtue to work on each week.  In a column marked “defects,” he kept careful record of each infraction, and started over every thirteen weeks in order to cycle through these virtues four times a year.

“For many decades Franklin carried his little book with him, striving for a clean thirteen-week cycle.  As he made progress, he found himself struggling with yet another defect:

‘There is perhaps no one of natural passions so hard to subdue as pride.  Disguise it.  Struggle with it.  Stifle it.  Mortify it as much as one pleases.  It is still alive, and will every now and then peep out and show itself… Even if I could conceive that I had completely overcome it, I should probably be proud of my humility.’  (“What’s So Amazing About Grace?” by Philip Yancey, p. 35)

                                                    ______

“Pride makes us artificial and humility makes us real.”  Thomas Merton

“What kills a skunk is the publicity it gives itself.”  Abraham Lincoln

“He was like a cock who thought the sun had risen to hear him crow.”  George Eliot, Adam Bede, 1859

“Lord, where we are wrong, make us willing to change; where we are right, make us easy to live with.”  Peter Marshall

And here's a link to a Dilbert comic strip that fits our soup ingredient of humility:
http://dilbert.com/dyn/str_strip/000000000/00000000/0000000/100000/70000/7000/500/177518/177518.strip.gif 

              Humility

Pride goes before destruction,

Haughty spirit e’re a fall.

Before honor comes humility –

We’ll do well to recall.

With wisdom comes humility,

A treasure from the heart.

Acknowledge God in all my ways

And know I’m not that smart!

Think not more highly than you ought;

Exalt yourself no more.

Avoid disgrace, receive His ways,

And enter lowly door.

          By Elaine Beachy

          February 21, 2013

Scripture references:  Proverbs 15:33, Proverbs 16:18, Proverbs 13:10, Proverbs 29:23, Proverbs 11:2, Psalm 25:9, James 4:6, and Matthew 23:12.

God bless you, dear Reader!

Copyright © 2013 Elaine Beachy