Coding, Managing and Christianity

To be humble, one needs to act humble

“To be humble, one needs to act humble” - makes sense, doesn’t it? Except, that I don’t know how to do that. I heard or read it somewhere, probably in a sermon and it stuck with me. It is one of those phrases where one says of course or that is obvious.

Humility, like most, if not all spiritual qualities require relationships to be expressed or demonstrated in. One can have a humble mindset, which is the necessary pre-requisite for being humble, but only in the context of an interaction with others, humility really manifests itself through action. Hence one needs to act humble.

Coming back to “I don’t know how to do that”; When I think about applications in my life, things that come to mind are:

• Not do defend myself, when someone has criticism, but rather take it in, make my best effort to understand what the other person is saying, think about it, acknowledge it, apologize if necessary and then make changes where applicable. Of course not every criticism is valid, or as Les Brown says “Someone’s opinion of you does not have to become your reality"῾ However we still have to carefully examine it.
• Catch myself thinking “how could one?” or “you got yourself into this mess”, but instead try to see things from the other individuals perspective, accept that it is always easier not being in the situation or looking at it after the fact, when the outcome is already clear.
• Don’t look down on others because they are not as skilled, or experienced, or successful or whatever than I am, but instead be patient, thoughtful, kind and helpful.

The problem is just that those thoughts and reactions happen in split seconds. There is a trigger moment and before I even know it, I go down one of those lanes. In the best case, I start thinking one of those thoughts, but catch myself, replace it by truth and do what ever the right thing at that moment might be. However, many times I don’t even realize that I’m riding down pride street full speed ahead. How do I catch myself in such a moment before I hit a wall? - Reflection might be an answer, meaning make time to think about the events of the day or the prior day. Ideally I would recognize a pride spell then and

• identify the trigger moment, so I can recognize it the next time when it happens,
• think through an alternative way to handle it better,
• and make amends when needed

That is all still not easy, but much more doable than just act humble. If you have other ideas on how to become more humble, I would love to hear about them. “God opposes te proud, but shows favor to the humble” (Proverbs 3:34, James 4:6, 1 Peter 5) provides plenty of motivations to grow in humility.