Eat or be eaten. That's natural law. It's also an accurate representation of Jr high to high school. It was make fun or be made fun of. Be popular or be a looser.
Eighth grade was the toughest year of school for me. Not academically, but socially. I was made fun of for various things, the way I did my hair, the clothing I wore, the way I shot a basketball, etc. Names were thrown at me: "Comb-over kid" for my hair and "frog-stalker," a combination insult of the way I shot a basketball and the fact I had a little crush on a certain girl. I finally got some respect once I found ways to mock those who were mocking me, but I didn't like what mocking others did to me on the inside. The school year passed by and 9th grade was a little easier. The school was a little bigger, the taunts less personal, and I was able to find myself again.Humility was and is not a trait highly valued in our the world for our children then or now. Rather it's the talent, the pride which we value. And we're not much better as adults.
In a society which downplays our strengths and magnifies our weaknesses humility is seen as a weakness.
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| Lets be honest, Wolverine has almost no humility. |
Admitting you're wrong is weakness rather than upstanding moral character.
The winners of arguments are those who can degrade furthest the character of their opponent, rather than the actual weighing of the facts.
Giving the benefit of the doubt is seen as ignorance and foolishly, misplaced optimism in a time when assuming the worst about people and jumping to worst-case scenarios are the go-to judgement-calls for "realists."
We are turning into the Nephites at their peak of pride. In fact, I would confidently say that we're worse than they ever were. The nearly ubiquitous attitude of pride-filled entitlement in this country is truly breath-taking.
A survey was taken concerning how people planned to retire. The top answer was lawsuit. People actually have a firm belief that they can just sue someone else out of all their money and then retire. Remind you of any other people? How about Ammonihah?
I think it's fairly obvious that humility, not oil, is the scarcest of our natural resources.
Humility is Strength
Enough of my rambling. What does the Lord have to say. In my list of Commandments and Blessings (which is by no means comprehensive) humility is spoken of no less than 22 times. That's kind of a lot.
Humility is often required in addition to other traits to be granted blessings, but there are a few sets of verses when humility in and of itself is the requirement. It's actually very instructive to me that the very first isolatable commandment linked to a blessing in the D&C is about humility.
"And inasmuch as they were humble they might be made
strong, and blessed from on high, and receive knowledge
from time to time."
(D&C 1:28)
Did anyone else catch that God wants us to know that humility is not weakness, but rather strength? God is trying desperately to help us understand that what the world is telling us is the exact opposite of what is actually truth. That shouldn't be a surprise to anyone by now. I think we all get that the world and God aren't exactly in alignment.
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| Humility, though it appears to be weakness, will outweigh pride in strength every time. |
Humility does so much for us! It's no wonder that Satan is trying to drive us away from it! "Be thou humble; and the Lord thy God shall lead thee by the hand, and give thee answer to thy prayers." (D&C 112:10). Little can be done towards the salvation of a prideful person until they are brought down to humility.
Pride is the root of all sin. President Benson gave an iconic talk on pride appropriately titled Beware of Pride. He explains that pride has been around as long as we have. Even in the pre-mortal life pride is what caused Satan to rebel against God. So then, doesn't it make perfect sense that in trying to steer us away from God here in mortality the devil will try to poison us with the same draft that lead to his own rebellion?
Pride vs Self-Confidence
People will say that they're not prideful, they just have a lot of self esteem, a lot of self confidence. Well, 'scuse me for interrupting, but what passes for self-confidence most of the time now used to be called pride.
There is a distinct attitude in the world today, mostly among the youth and young adults, of "I don't care what anyone has to say or what anyone thinks or what anyone else does. I am me and if you don't like it then you can get out of my face and quit judging me cause I'm just the way I am and I'm not changing for you or anyone else." Hmmmm, yeah that's not self-confidence. That's straight up pride. But that's what's passing for self-confidence nowadays!
I don't even know what else I could say about that. It's so obvious once you look at it. Self confidence is not this "I don't care what you say or what you think" bit. Self confidence is deciding to care what some people think and deciding not to care what others think. Like this. You'd better care what God thinks first of all. And you'd better care about what your teachers and your parents think too. You don't have to let them run your life, but they can give you pretty good advice. Self confidence is knowing your imperfections. Not that you don't care about them, but that you're confident enough to recognize them and work on them!
So be sure that when you're talking about pride you include those particular brands of "self confidence," cause if we're honest with ourselves, it's really just pride by a different name.
To Combat an Idea
For us to be able to turn ourselves toward humility we must see how the world is playing us, how we are being tricked into false definitions of strength and "winning" and "loosing." God defines humility and grounding in true principles as strength. The world defines strength as pride and the ability to beat the snot out of anyone who stands in your way.
In eighth grade we were playing basketball at recess. I don't remember the details of what happened, but I got in a bit of a scuffle with another boy. After a few swings I realized that, while I wasn't in the wrong, fighting wasn't the answer and so I backed away, he came after me but was pulled back by a teacher who saw the whole thing. I was still pretty mad, but didn't want to start anything else, so I went into the restroom to cool down for a minute. I splashed a little water on my face, and walked out after a few minutes. Well guess who was called the victor and who was called the looser. Because I had backed away first then I was the "looser." Because I had walked away from the situation I was called a "crybaby."
Haha it's alright I'm over it now, but that's pretty much how the world declares a "winner." Take big business for example. You've gotta be careful about admitting you're in the wrong when something bad goes down cause if people see a scapegoat they'll pile everything on top of you and kick you out the door.
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| When all is said and done it will matter very little how many trophies are on the walls of your home, but rather the quality of your heart. |
We need to, as individuals, change our perception of winning and loosing, of strength and weakness. We must strive to see that the humble of heart are much further along this race of life than we are. Any missionary, anyone who has tried to share the gospel with another human being knows that the humble at heart are the most willing to turn their lives over to God.
To combat the false perceptions of strength and humility that the world has given us we must recognize the lies for what they are, and then wield against them truth.
Humility vs Weakness
So where then is the line between being humble and letting people take advantage of you? That's how most people see it at least. Either you're strong, prideful, and show people who's boss, or you're humble, weak, pitiful, and let people just walk all over you. The question is NOT whether we should be humble or be strong. Don't let Satan even tempt you to ask the question that way. We know that humility brings strength, not weakness.
Look at Christ. He was perfectly humble. He acknowledged His father's hand in all things. But no one can say that people walked all over Him. He cast the money-changers out of the temple, He called out the Scribes and Pharisees multiple times, He stood up for what was right with everything He did and said. Because of His perfect humility in deferring to the Father He was granted strength from the Father to do everything that was necessary for Him to do.
Humility is not weakness. Humility is strength.
Don't Pray for Humility, Cause Then You Might Be Humbled
I'm afraid this is one of the tools Satan has used to infiltrate the church. This phrase is absolutely true. If you pray for humility then God will grant you what you ask for and help you to have humility. What Satan has done, however, is turned that around and used it against us.
This frustrates me so much though! Are we so in love with our pride and so afraid of God that we refuse to pray for humility?? We refuse to ask an infinitely loving God, who has our best interest at heart and our exaltation as His goal, to aid us in the development of one of the most Christ-like attributes available to man?
No one, not one of us, is perfectly humble. This is something that we should all be praying for frequently! And you know why? Because if pride is the root of all sin then by the Law of Opposition humility must be the root of all righteousness! And it makes perfect sense!
If we are humble we will be able to develop charity towards our fellow man, we will trust God, we will serve others, we will follow the commandments, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera! We cannot become like God without humility. As we develop humility we will begin to develop other Christ-like attributes as a natural and instinctive outcome.
Humility, the Root of All Righteousness
May we not be fearful, but rather trust in God enough to pray for humility. See pride and aggrandizement for what it is and don't be pulled into the worldly definitions of "winning" and "strength." Learn to find your strength in humility, rather than looking for strength in spite of humility.
May we all find ourselves a little more humility today and forever.
Keep pushing on.
Andrew
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