Genesis 11:4 - "Let us make a name." To make a name implied self-direction. The struggle for humanity: to grow, to develop, to become all that being in the image of God promises without perverting that image through pridefulness and violence. The Lord gave the people a name: Babel! They aspired to the wrong goals, and the result was God's judgement. Babel means confusion. Aspiration was not bad; it is good. Building, creating--being a steward of talent and resources is good. To use talent and resources to make a name, that is, a life apart from God is not good, and such perversion of ability leads to confusion.
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Humility. I believe that almost every spiritual problem can be solved by humility. One way to understand humility is to see it as accuracy. Humility means seeing and describing yourself as you are without defensiveness or exaggeration. Humility requires self-awareness which means to recognize your strengths and to recognize your weaknesses and limitations. In this understanding pride is a subset of humility. To take pride in one's work and to be willing to offer one's abilities in service to others is good. Such pride produces a confidence that is well-founded. A humble person can be confident. So self-awareness includes this desire to be a good steward of one's strengths. At the same time humility requires the desire and commitment to improve one's deficits to the degree possible. Humility is both self-awareness and self-forgetfulness. To be self-forgetful as an expression of humility means that a person is eager to listen to others, to work at understanding others and to be helpful as wanted and needed by others. Listening is first an inclination and then a skill. People who have assertive personalities may need to work harder at wanting to listen. If they do not have the inclination to listen they can still become listeners through discipline. Listening is essential to understanding, but understanding often requires more, particularly, when cultural, racial, language, education, gender, life experiences, and parenting differences create world views that diverge. So pridefulness, unwillingness to see things as they really are is the opposite of humility, but pride is a subset of humility. In Genesis 11 the people became prideful which led to confusion and destruction. Peter reminded the church that God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble (1 Peter 5:5).
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As in all matters of virtue grace is the beginning point. Humility is a picture of salvation. Jesus told a story of two men who went to pray. One man, religious leader, prayed with gratitude that he was not like the other man who had come to pray. He was grateful not to be a sinner. The second man fell on his face and acknowledged his sin and prayed to be forgiven. Jesus asked which man left the place of prayer right with God. Sin, wrong doing, separates us from God when we do not acknowledge it. In everyone's life, except perhaps one who is mentally ill, there is an awareness of right and wrong. To refuse to accept this reality of sin is to persist in wrong doing and to separate oneself from God who is both loving and righteous. God's loved expressed in grace that offers forgiveness puts us right with God when we acknowledge and ask forgiveness for our sins.
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Grandchildren. Yesterday I showed Stone, our four-year old grandson, a picture of himself with his siblings when he was less than one year old, and I asked him if he recognized everyone in the picture. He named them all, and said, "I'm the baby!" I have enjoyed watching each one of my grandchildren grow from infant to child and now to watch our granddaughter become a teenager. Each stage is wonderful. At the dinner table last evening the youngest was crying, and the oldest was helping him with instructions: "take a deep breath, drink some water." The wonder of family humbles me. We grow into maturity and help the one behind us grow, too. It is a good picture of the church family. We have in every church different ages of faith, and those ages are not necessarily matched by years. Some are older chronologically but younger spiritually. Still, the goal in our church family is to help the ones who are younger to grow to maturity. It is a wonder of family life.
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