A Humble Guy Shines for Christ

“Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the most of the opportunity.”  Ephesians 5:15-16

Ruth Bell Graham, in her book “Legacy of a Pack Rat,” tells a story about a professor and a man who shined his boots: 

    Alexander Grigolia had immigrated to America from Soviet Georgia, learned English, earned three doctoral degrees, and became a successful professor at the University of Pennsylvania. But despite his freedom and achievements, he had a misery in his heart that he couldn’t dislodge.

    One day while getting a shoeshine he noticed that the bootblack went about his work with a sense of joy, scrubbing and buffing and smiling and talking. Finally Dr. Grigolia could stand it no longer. He said in his funny-sounding accent, “What always you so happy?” 

    Looking up, the bootblack paused and replied, “Jesus. He loves me. He died so God could forgive my badness. He makes me happy.” 

    The professor snapped his newspaper back in front of his face, and the bootblack went back to work.

    But Dr. Grigolia never escaped those words, and they brought him eventually to the Savior. He later became a professor of anthropology at Wheaton College, and taught, among others, a young student named Billy Graham.

On Humility--Jonathan Edwards

"Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you."  I Peter 5:6

Below is Jonathan Edwards' (1703-1758) description of a humble person. Between this and yesterday's post, I have given you the very best I've found on this subject.

A brief word: The Puritans want their readers to engage in serious meditation. That explains why most of us find the Puritans a hard slog. Meditation on truth is difficult work! Also, we may struggle with a style of writing that seems strange and antiquated, and because some of their words meant different things 300 years ago, or have gone entirely out of use. But here I believe is the main problem: We just don't think in the elevated ways the Puritans did about God and holy things. They make sounds outside our normal range and we must strain ourselves to hear them. "It is not the bee's touching of the flower that gathers honey, but her abiding for a time upon the flower that draws out the sweet" (T. Brooks).

"Humility may be defined to be a habit of mind and heart corresponding to our comparative unworthiness and vileness before God, or a sense of our own comparative meanness in His sight, with the disposition to a behavior answerable thereto.

And a truly humble man is sensible of the small extent of his own knowledge, and the great extent of his ignorance, and of the small extent of his understanding as compared with the understanding of God. He is sensible of his weakness, how little his strength is, and how little he is able to do. He is sensible of his natural distance from God, of his dependence on Him, of the insufficiency of his own power and wisdom to lead and guide him, and his might to enable him to do what he ought to do for Him.

Humility tends to prevent an aspiring and ambitious behavior amongst men. The man that is under the influence of an humble spirit is content with such a situation amongst men as God is pleased to allot to him, and is not greedy of honor, and does not affect to appear uppermost and exalted above his neighbors. Humility tends also to prevent an arrogant and assuming behavior. On the contrary, humility disposes a person to a condescending behavior to the meekest and lowest and to treat inferiors with courtesy and affability, as being sensible of his own weakness and despicableness before God.

If we then consider ourselves as the followers of the meek and lowly and crucified Jesus, we shall walk humbly before God and man all the days of our life on earth.

Let us all be exhorted earnestly to seek much of an humble spirit, and to endeavor to be humble in all their behavior toward God and men. Seek for a deep and abiding sense of your comparative meanness before God and man. Know God. Confess your nothingness and ill-desert before Him. Distrust yourself. Rely only on God. Renounce all glory except from Him. Yield yourself heartily to His will and service. Avoid an aspiring, ambitious, ostentatious, assuming, arrogant, scornful, stubborn, willful leveling, self-justifying behavior; and strive for more and more of the humble spirit that Christ manifested while He was on earth.

Humility is a most essential and distinguishing trait in all true piety. Earnestly seek, then, and diligently and prayerfully cherish an humble spirit, and God shall walk with you here below; and when a few more days shall have passed, He will receive you to the honors bestowed on His people at Christ’s right hand."

On Humility--Thomas Brooks

"Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another for 'God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble'" (I Peter 5:5).

When we are prideful, the "accuser of the brethren" is able to sow discord and create division with ease. Why should he bother himself with devouring the saints (I Pet 5:8), when we will do that work for him? "But if you bite and devour one another take heed that you are not consumed by one another" (Gal 5:15).

The Puritan Thomas Brooks gives 12 remedies for resisting the enemy's strategy for dividing Christians in his classic work, "Precious Remedies Against Satan's Devices" (published 1652). The last remedy is "Above all, labor to be clothed with humility."

Brooks remarks on humility cut to the heart; I encourage you to read them to your family members:

“Humility makes a man peaceable among brethren, fruitful in well-doing, cheerful in suffering, and constant in holy walking. Humility fits for the highest services we owe to Christ, and yet will not neglect the lowest service to the meanest saint (John 13:5).  Humility can feed upon the meanest dish, and yet it is maintained by the choicest delicates, as God, Christ, and glory.

Humility will make a man bless him that curses him, and pray for those that persecute him. A humble heart is a habitation for God, a scholar for Christ, a companion of angels, a preserver of grace, and a fitter for glory. Humility is the nurse of our graces, the preserver of our mercies, and the great promoter of holy duties. 

Humility cannot find three things on this side of heaven: it cannot find fullness in the creature, nor sweetness in sin, nor life in an ordinance without Christ. A humble soul always finds three things on this side of heaven: the soul to be empty, Christ to be full, and every mercy and duty to be sweet wherein God is enjoyed.