Hey hey hey! It’s Friday! We made it! 🎉
It’s our last week in “Humble Roots” but I know I’m going to be thinking about these concepts for a long time! Here are this week’s questions:
Chapter 8: Natural Resources
*Do you consider yourself privileged? Did this chapter make you think of privilege differently?
*Is it difficult for you to believe that what you have been given is a gift from God? How might you be trying to earn His favor? How would that keep you from being grateful for these gifts?
*How does gratitude lead to cultivating these gifts?
Chapter 9: Field of Dreams
*What are you gifted at? Think about what you are especially good at doing. Is it difficult for you to recognize what your God-given talents might be?
*How does humility in our gifts free us to actually use them?
*How does knowing our gifting help us to narrow our focus and free us from “keeping our options open”?
Chapter 10: Thorns and Thistles
*Hannah listed various ways we can respond to the trials and hardships of life:
- seek pleasure and wealth (hedonism)
- laziness
- hopelessness and indifference
In which way do you tend to respond?
*How would humility help you to counter this response?
*“Humility teaches us to find rest in confession” (pg. 186). Do you find this to be true? What role does confession play in your faith life?
Chapter 11: A Secret Garden
*Hannah writes that resurrection does not happen apart from humility and surrender to God’s will. How is Jesus an example to us of this?
*Jesus, even now, is working to restore our humility. “And as we submit to His skillful hand, our own hearts and lives-though perhaps for a time locked and dead-will break forth in green” (pg. 202). What hope does this give you for your life and your future? Does knowing this make a difference in how you view your current circumstances?
*“Every night, we must stop our work; every night, we must lay ourselves down; and every night, we must trust. Every night, we must practice” (pg. 205). How is the daily act of going to sleep each night a faith practice?
Scripture of the Week
Proverbs 16:33
1 Peter 5:10
Isaiah 35:1-2
1 Corinthians 4:7
Prayer for the Week
Father God, forgive us for our pride. Help us to lay it down and to find rest in You. Help us to humble ourselves under your mighty hand and cast all our cares on You. You care so much for us! Help us to see that everything we have: our possessions, our talents and desires, our homes and jobs and children are all gifts from You. We didn’t earn any of it and we don’t have to try and earn Your favor either. Help us to trust You. Help us to let go of pride and control and come to You. Thank You for Your faithfulness to us and for loving us so much. We love You and praise You. In Jesus’ Name, Amen
For Next Month
*Check out THIS POST for all the details for next month!
Before reading this book, I wasn’t truly aware how much humility is connected to pride. And how anger is rooted in pride. And how angry and prideful I really am.
I am angry because I have realized I have believed (and worse, trusted in) the lie that pride tells us: “…all we have to do is organize well enough, plan effectively enough, and work hard enough and we can achieve our dreams.” (Page 165)
But come on, do we really believe this? I mean really…aren’t we smarter than that?! Deep down, I think we know it’s a lie, but we wish it were true – so badly so that we live a false reality for as long as we can.
It’s discouraging that “we are not guaranteed a harvest simply because we worked hard and planned well.” (Page 165) Investing seems useless if there’s no progress or payout. That’s why I really appreciated Hannah’s definition of the sluggard in that he “…thinks so highly of his energy and efforts that he’s not willing to waste them.” (Page 181) On the one hand, it’s commendable really that one wouldn’t want to waste time, etc. if there weren’t a guarantee of success. Time is precious and short, so why bother doing that which won’t seem to matter? On the other hand, how do we know if it will matter – either immediately or years from now unless we invest? But, you see, the focus is on ourselves…and therein lies the issue: selfishness, resulting from pride. Seeing things in light of ourselves is in one way “normal” in that we can only see our experiences subjectively. And yet we must also learn to view experiences objectively because we are not, in fact, the center of the universe, as much as we may want to be.
Almost everything is out of our control, contrary to what we’re constantly told. “Be all you can be.” “If you can dream it, you can do it.” “Shoot for the moon.” But life doesn’t usually work out that way. And when it doesn’t, it’s no surprise that fear swoops in, creating so many addicted, passive, depressed, stagnant people.
So where’s the hope? Not in us, that’s for sure! Exactly! Not. In. Us. We are flawed – all of us, in some form or another. We are broken and can’t fulfill each other’s needs all the time. We didn’t create ourselves or even ask to be here, so how can we expect to have all the answers and fix each other’s lives?! As independently minded as we may think we are, we are dependent creatures. And in order for our lives to begin experiencing any type of rest, “we are to humbly depend on God for life.” (Page 143)
And this is where we wrestle with our pride. This is so contrary to what we believe, what we want to believe. What we have is not ours by our doing. Sure, we can work and get paid and buy the things we want. But the plans we think we made, the paths we think we chose – our existence itself – all of it isn’t something we ultimately can take credit for.
Because if we’re honest, we only will take the credit if things are going well or in our favor (there’s the selfishness and pride again). Who is willing to take credit for the failed grade, dissolved marriage, or substantial debt? This doesn’t mean we simply blame others for our part in our problems. What this does mean is that we stop passing the buck and acknowledge we can’t piece ourselves back together. When we step out of the spotlight, “when we are humbled before Him, we will be free to mourn the brokenness.” (Page 185)
At the root of our pride is the belief that we can be trusted more than God. To admit need is deemed weak. And thus we have no doubt not only wallowed in our struggle longer than needed due to our pride, but also determined/presumed God’s power is similar to human power, so why use it because it’s not really going to be helpful anyway.
I wish we weren’t broken. I wish life went our way much more of the time. “But it is precisely our brokenness that humbles us, and it is precisely our brokenness that reveals God’s power.” (Page 186)
Matthew 23:12 says, “For those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.“ Exalting ourselves comes in many different forms; at the heart of it, once again, is pride. Prideful people exalt themselves because they don’t want others seeing how broken they really are. But we are all broken; and we all need to be restored and comforted. Jesus has restored our broken humanity. The Holy Spirit, Our Comforter, is able to comfort us and allows us to humble ourselves before and surrender ourselves to Him. He is the One we can always, fully trust. He is the One we can rest in. He is the One who can nourish our souls.