Humble Yourself Even When Life is Tough

Life is difficult and can be very troublesome and, at times, traumatic. The ones you love most will lie to you while not caring how they make you feel. Sometimes, you get sick and/or will fall ill to an illness that you cannot seem to overcome or someone you’re close to may fall victim to a situation that is out of your control.

One thing that we like is control over our situation and the life we live but often times, there is little that we can do but hold on and pray. Life has taught me to be tough but it’s also taught me that it’s very difficult to trust people. No, this does not mean that you give up on people but rather, you proceed with caution. President Reagan used to speak of Russia in the sense that we were to “trust, but verify” which is ironic considering the phrase itself is a Russian Proverb.

That’s one of the most important life lessons that I’ve learned on my walk. It’s good to be able to trust people but there comes a point when the trust that we give needs to be verified. This may not sound like a Christian principle but Christ warns us about just trusting anyone. There are too many times when pride will get in our way and rather than doing what’s rational and what is right, we do something to spite a person and rarely does this ever turn out well. This is just one more reason why we, as God’s people, must use humility. Instead of doing as we desire, we must do what is right even if we do not make any sense of the situation.

Proverbs 22:4 informs us that “By humility [and] the fear of the LORD [are] riches, and honour, and life” whereas 1 Peter 5:6 instructs us to “Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time” as pride is something that we are to put away: “[When] pride cometh, then cometh shame: but with the lowly [is] wisdom” (Proverbs 11:2). Wisdom is significant within a person’s life as education (while different than wisdom) helps a person on their walk here on Earth but wisdom comes from above and the only way to ensure that we are striving for the things above rather than the things here on Earth is by making God more: “He must increase, but I [must] decrease” (John 3:30).