What Humility Is and Is Not

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Here’s another principle of Tom Holladay’s book, The Relationship Principles of Jesus: 

Humility is not putting myself down; it is lifting God up. 

Here’s the thing: If you are constantly or frequently putting yourself down, you’re drawing attention to yourself. And true humility does not focus on itself; it focuses on God and on others. I love the quote from Andrew Murray: “The humble person is not one who thinks meanly of himself; he simply does not think of himself at all!” 

I’ve known people who can never accept a compliment. If you tell them they look good today, they insist they don’t. If you compliment the way they did something, they will tell you how poorly they performed. They just cannot simply accept a compliment and say, “Thank you!” so the person giving the compliment usually feels obligated to repeat it! It must be that they think they should not accept credit or compliments because that would mean they were proud. So, they just won’t let you compliment them or say something nice. 

But that is not a sign of true humility. True humility is not putting yourself down; it is lifting God up. I’ve tried to practice this when people are kind enough to say something nice about me or my ministry. My usual response is, “Thank you; that encourages me and I’m grateful.” 

I love the story of the response that Corrie ten Boom gave Billy Graham many years ago when he asked her how she handled all the nice things people said to her after one of her presentations. She said, “Oh, Billy, I just gather them all up like a bouquet of flowers at the end of the day and give them to Jesus.” That is true humility—not putting herself down, but lifting God up. 

James 4:10 says “Humble yourselves before the Lord and He will lift you up.” I encourage you to learn true humility. Don’t put yourself down, just lift God up.