HUMILITY
Humility is the mother, root, nurse, foundation, and center of all other virtues.
—Chrysostom
Humility is a strange thing. The minute you think you’ve got it, you’ve lost it.
Humility is the ability to act ashamed when you tell people how wonderful you are.
—Lee Liechansky
The moderator of a Presbyterian church in Melbourne, Australia, gave J. Hudson Taylor a flattering introduction. When the founder of the China Inland Mission stepped into the pulpit, he quietly said, “Dear friends, I am a little servant of an illustrious Master.” The late A. W. Tozer was once presented to a congregation in a similar manner, and his response was, “All I can say is, dear God, forgive him for what he said—and forgive me for enjoying it so much!”
—James L. Snyder
John McNeil preached a sermon on humility. After the service, a woman said to him, “Yes, Dr. McNeil, humility is my forte.”
Humility is not denying the power you have. It is realizing that the power comes through you, not from you.
—Fred Smith
A young man once received a medal from an organization which used very extravagant language in extolling his accomplishments. Jubilantly the prize winner proudly repeated the words to his mother. Then he asked, “How many great men are there in the world today?” His mother pondered for a while and then wisely said, “One less than you think!”
Alex Haley, the author of Roots, had a picture in his office showing a turtle sitting atop a fence. The picture was there to remind him of a lesson he learned long ago: If you see a turtle on a fence post, you know he had some help.
And Alex Hley would say, “Any time I start thinking, Wow, isn’t this marvelous what I’ve done! I look at that picture and remember how this turtle—me—got up on that post.”
—Philip B. Osborn
Someone has to give way. There is a rule in sailing that the more maneuverable ship should give way to the less maneuverable craft. I think this is sometimes a good rule to follow in human relationships as well.
—Joyce Brothers
Martin Luther is credited with the following interesting story: Two mountain goats met each other on a narrow ledge just wide enough for one of the animals. On the left was a sheer cliff, and on the right a deep lake. The two face each other. What should they do? They could not back up—that would be too dangerous; they could not turn around, because the ledge was too narrow. Now if the goats had no more sense than some people, they would meet head-on and start butting each other till they fell into the lake below. Luther said that goats have better sense than this. One lay down on the trail and let the other literally walk over him—and both were safe.
Humility is unconscious self-forgetfulness.
—W. H. Griffith Thomas
A famous multimillionaire while attending a dinner, heard a discussion on the subject of prayer. After listening for a while, the man of means exclaimed with a sneer, “Prayer may be all right for some of you, but I don’t need it. Everything I have today I’ve worked hard for, and I’ve earned it all myself. I didn’t ask God for anything.” A university president listened politely, then said to the braggart, “There is one thing you don’t have that you might pray for.” Startled, the millionaire blurted out, “And what might that be?” The educator replied gently, “Sir, you could pray for humility.”
Humility is something we should constantly pray for, yet never thank God that we have.
—M. R. De Haan
When someone asked Saint Francis of Assisi why and how he could accomplish so much, he replied: “This may be why. The Lord looked down from heaven upon the earth and said, ‘Where can I find the weakest, the littlest, the poorest man on the face of the earth?’ Then He saw me and said, ‘Now I’ve found him, and will work through him. He won’t be proud of it. He’ll see that I am only using him because of his littleness and insignificance.’ ”
—C. Reuben Anderson
One day John Knox approached the court of Mary, Queen of Scots, and was warned that it might be better to postpone his visit as she was in one of her angriest moods. He continued on his way replying, “Why should I be afraid of a queen when I have just spent four hours with God?”
The humble person does not take offense or fight back. He turns the other cheek to the one who hits him. And yet humility is not cowardice, for humility requires high courage. Humility makes you willing to take a lower place than you deserve, to keep quiet about your merits, to bear slights, insults, and false accusations for a higher purpose. Jesus displayed humility for “when He was reviled, [He] did not revile in return; when He suffered, He did not threaten.”
—John Haggai
Humility is not thinking less of yourself than you are. Nor is humility always talking about your faults and shortcomings as compared with everyone else’s superiority and achievements. Humility is simply a recognition of the truth about ourselves; and then most often, a forgetfulness of self that allows genuine concern for others and a genuine worship of God.
—S. Craig Glickman
I believe the first test of a truly great man is his humility. I do not mean by humility, doubt of his own power, or hesitation in speaking his opinion. But really great men have a curious under-sense of powerlessness, feeling that the greatness is not in them but through them; that they could not do or be anything else than God made them.
—John Ruskin
Moses spent forty years thinking he was somebody; then he spent forty years on the back side of the desert realizing he was nobody; finally, he spent the last forty years of his life learning what God can do with a nobody!
—D. L. Moody
Humility is not depreciation of ourselves, but appreciation of God.
A haughty lawyer once asked a godly old farmer, “Why don’t you hold your head up high the way I do? No one pushes me around. I bow before neither God nor man!” “See that field of grain yonder?” replied the farmer. “Only the empty heads stand up. Those that are well filled always bow low.”
It is no great thing to be humble when you are brought low; but to be humble when you are praised is a great and rare achievement.
—Bernard of Clairvaux
Someone quipped, “Someday when I get to be rich and famous, I wonder if I’ll be the same sweet, lovable, humble person I am now?”
A man can counterfeit hope, love, faith, and many other graces, but it is very difficult to counterfeit humility.
Someone asked Leonard Bernstein, “What’s the most difficult instrument to play?” Immediately he answered, “Second violin.”
God has two thrones, one in the highest heavens, the other in the lowliest heart.
—D. L. Moody
People who think they know it all are especially annoying to us who do.
Be wiser than other people if you can; but do not tell them so.
—Philip Chesterfield
Humility is recognizing our limits.
Humility is to make a right estimate of oneself. It is no humility for a man to think less of himself than he ought.
—Charles H. Spurgeon
Sammy Morris, a devoted Christian from Africa, came to America to go to school. Although his pathway to service for Christ was not easy, his difficulties never deterred him. Perhaps this was because he had learned genuine humility. One incident that showed this occurred when he arrived at Taylor University in Upland, Indiana. He was asked by the school’s president what room he wanted. Sammy replied, “If there is a room nobody wants, give it to me.” Later the president commented, “I turned away, for my eyes were full of tears. I was asking myself whether I was willing to take what nobody else wanted.”
—Our Daily Bread
If all people were as anxious to get to the bottom as some are in climbing to the top, they would have no trouble in reaching both places.
Near the entrance to a large hospital in the eastern United States there stands a white marble statue of Christ. On its base are engraved the words, “Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” One day a cynical man walked around the statue, viewing it disapprovingly from every angle. A small girl stood and watched him for a time and then she said, “Oh, sir, you cannot see Him that way. You must get very close and fall upon your knees and look up.”
H. A. Ironside asked a military captain one day, “How can I be humble?” “Why don’t you take your Bible and read it downtown on the sidewalks?” “Do you think it will make me humble?” “At least it will help.” So he did. At noon he was hungry and hot, but he didn’t stop. He went on reading texts from the Bible until 4:00 P.M. Then he went home and said to himself, “There’s not another man in town that would do that.”
Humility is a bag into which Christ puts the riches of His grace. The one infallible test of our holiness will be the humility before God and men which marks us. Humility is the bloom and the beauty of holiness. The chief mark of counterfeit holiness is its lack of humility.
—Andrew Murray
In the summer of 1940 the Netherlands had fallen. A surgeon, talking to an elderly Frisian farmer, asked, “And what are we to do now?” The old Christian replied, “Before men we must be as eagles; before God, as worms.”
I used to think that God’s gifts were on shelves one above the other; and that the taller we grew in Christian character, the easier we could reach them. I now find that God’s gifts are on shelves one beneath the other; and that it is not a question of growing taller but of stooping lower; and that we have to go down, always down, to get His best gifts.
—F. B. Meyer
When little Wilhemina was crowned queen of Holland, the happy little girl, too young to realize the gravity of the occasion, with thousands of people cheering her on, was unable to take it all in. Turning to her mother she said, “Mama, do all these people belong to me?” Her mother replied, “No, dear, you belong to all these people!”
Who flies the kite? I, said the boy. I fly the kite. It is my joy. I fly the kite.
Who flies the kite? I, said the wind. I fly the kite. It is my whim. I fly the kite.
Who flies the kite? I, said the string. I’m the thing that flies the kite.
Who flies the kite? I, said the tail. I made the sail. I fly the kite.
Who flies the kite? All are wrong—all are right. All fly the kite!
Let it be repeated, there are two views of one’s life. One is that a man’s life is his own, to do with as he [or she] pleases; the other is that it belongs to another and … that the other to whom it belongs is Christ Himself.
—John R. Mott
Humility is perfect quietness of heart. It is for me to have no trouble; never to be fretted or vexed or irritated or sore or disappointed. It is to expect nothing, to wonder at nothing that is done to me, to feel nothing done against me. It is to be at rest when nobody praises me and when I am blamed or despised. It is to have a blessed home in the Lord where I can go in and shut the door and kneel to my Father in secret and be at peace as in a deep sea of calmness when all around is trouble. It is the fruit of the Lord Jesus Christ’s redemptive work on Calvary’s cross, manifested in those of His own who are definitely subject to the Holy Spirit.
—Andrew Murray
The humble man feels no jealousy or envy. He can praise God when others are preferred and blessed before him. He can bear to hear others praised while he is forgotten because … he has received the spirit of Jesus, who pleased not Himself, and who sought not His own honor.
Therefore, in putting on the Lord Jesus Christ he has put on the heart of compassion, kindness, meekness, longsuffering, and humility.
—Andrew Murray
HUMOR
Sir Thomas More, as he was about to ascend the gallows, said to the master of the Tower, “Help me climb up. I can manage the trip down myself.”
The kind of humor I like is the thing that makes me laugh for five seconds and think for ten minutes.
—William Davis
Someone criticized Charles H. Spurgeon for his humor. He said to her, “You should hear what I hold back.”
HUSBANDS
Two old friends met. “How’s your husband?” said one.
Her pious friend smiled complacently, “Oh, he’s an angel!”
“You’re lucky,” said the other. “Mine’s still alive.”
—Murray Watts
A man’s unhappy life ended at age forty-seven. The widow, inconsolable at first, finally got a dog to ease her loneliness. The sorrow mellowed as she became attached to the dog.
“She’s happy because she’s gotten back to her old pattern of living,” reported a neighbor. “That dog is a perfect substitute for her poor husband. He’s out all day, sleeps all evening, and she feeds him out of cans.”
A wife said to her husband, “Did anyone ever tell you that you were witty, intelligent, and handsome?” “No.” “Then where did you get that idea?”
A New England farmer once said to his wife, “Wife, I love you so much sometimes it’s all I can do to keep from telling you.”
Husband: “You are so beautiful and yet so dumb.”
Wife: “God made me beautiful so you would marry me, and dumb so I would marry you.”
“Do you know someone perfect? Of course, no one of us does.”
But then a hand went up.
“Do you mean to say you know of someone perfect?”
“Yes, my wife’s first husband.”
Husbands were made to be talked to. It helps them concentrate on what they’re reading.
HYMNS
Tuberculosis cut short the lives of at least five noted hymn writers: Sarah Flower Adams (“Nearer My God to Thee”), W. B. Bradbury (“He Leadeth Me”), Curtis Kauffman (“Fling Wide the Gates”), Augustus Toplady (“Rock of Ages”), and Philip Doddridge (“O Happy Day”).
Toplady was beset by a life-long physical weakness. “He was a fearless preacher, with the courage of a lion, but with a frame as brittle as glass.” Tuberculosis cut short his life at the age of thirty-eight.
Isaac Watts was similarly handicapped by physical infirmity. “He was a frail little body, not much above five feet high, a life-long invalid, and much of the time an acute sufferer.” When he proposed marriage, the woman refused on account of his frail stature. He remained a life-long bachelor. Despite his physical frailty, he wrote thousands of hymns including, “Am I a Soldier of the Cross?” “Alas, and Did My Savior Bleed,” “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross,” “Jesus Shall Reign,” “Marching to Zion,” and “Joy to the World.”
One time Charles Wesley was suffering under some depressing circumstances. While contemplating his troubles, he sat at a desk beside an open window. Suddenly he was startled by a small bird that flew excitedly into his room and hid under the open lapel of the large preacher’s coat. Quickly putting his hand over the quivering creature whose fast-beating heart he could see palpitating against his own, he walked to the window and looked out to see if he could discern the object of its terror. There, circling nearby, was a huge hawk. Still holding the bird against his chest and seeing in the action of the fledgling a picture of his own search for refuge in God, Wesley wrote the words that have struck a responsive chord in the souls of thousands of others in times of deep distress. “Jesus, Lover of my soul, let me to thy bosom fly, while the nearer waters roll, while the tempest still is high! Hide me, O my Savior, hide—till the storm of life is past; safe into the haven guide; O receive my soul at last!”
HYPOCHONDRIACS
I never knew my uncle was a hypochondriac until a doctor told him he was in perfect health—and he asked for a second opinion.
—Bob Orben
HYPOCRISY
A man snubbed the local vicar at a cocktail party. “The church is full of hypocrites!”
“Why don’t you join?” suggested the vicar. “One more won’t make any difference.”
—Rolling in the Aisles
A professor of ethics at a leading university was attending a convention. He and another teacher of philosophy had lunch at a restaurant and were discussing deep issues of truth and morality. Before they left the table, the professor slipped the silverware into his pocket. Noticing his colleague’s puzzled look, he explained, “I just teach ethics. I need the spoons.”
Lead your life so you wouldn’t be ashamed to sell the family parrot to the town gossip.
A farmer once said to a friend, “I have some delicious apples growing in my orchard. If you come over, I’ll give you a bushel.” He repeated the offer, but his friend never came. Finally he asked, “John, why didn’t you accept my offer?” “Well, to tell you the truth,” said the other, “I have tasted them. As I went along the road a few weeks ago, I picked one up that had fallen over the wall and frankly, I have never eaten anything so sour!” “Oh,” laughed the farmer. “I thought that might be the case. Those apples around the outside were placed there because we have so many boys in the neighborhood. In order to protect my crop, I selected the sourest varieties to plant around the outer edge of my orchard. When the boys tasted these, they gave up stealing, thinking all the fruit was just as bad. However, if you will come with me, you’ll find that I grow a very different quality on the inside. You’ll really enjoy them. They’re as sweet as honey.”
Those who judge the church by its worst members make the same mistake when they allow the “sour apple hypocrites” to keep them away from the “orchard of fellowship” they might enjoy with God’s saints.
Why condemn the church because all its members aren’t fine saints? You don’t tear down the hospital because not all the patients recover.
Finding himself desperately in need of money, a man went to the city zoo, hoping to find a job feeding the animals. Although no such opportunity was available, the manager, seeing the size and the strength of the applicant, suddenly got an idea. “You know,” he said, “there are a few creatures who attract attention like a gorilla. Unfortunately, ours died yesterday. If we got you a special fur suit, would you be willing to imitate him for a few days?”
The hungry man agreed to try. He was quite successful as he beat his chest, bellowed, and shook the bars of the cage—much to the amusement of visitors who said they had never seen a gorilla with such intelligence.
One day, while swinging on his trapeze, he accidentally lost his grip and landed in the lion’s den. The huge beast gave a ferocious roar. Backing away, the impostor realized he couldn’t cry for assistance without revealing that he was a fake. He retreated, hoping to crawl back over the fence into his own cage. The lion, however, followed him.
Finally, in desperation, he yelled, “Help!” Immediately the lion said in an undertone, “Shut up, stupid! You’ll get us both fired!”
A hypocrite is one who complains there is too much sex and violence on his VCR.
The General Electric Company uses about two million sapphires a year for bearings in their meters and other delicate apparatus. To separate the real from the synthetic they use a cathode ray tube, which, when turned on a tray of stones in a dark room, makes them all glow. But when the ray is turned off, the artificial sapphires continue to glow and are picked from the tray. The real sapphires cannot be seen.
It is also said that under this ray, artificial diamonds turn brown while the genuine stones are unaffected.
The expression “face the music” is said to have originated in Japan. According to the story, one man in the imperial orchestra couldn’t play a note. Being a person of great influence and wealth, he had demanded that he be given a place in the group because he wanted to “perform” before the emperor.
The conductor agreed to let him sit in the second row of the orchestra, even though he couldn’t read music. He was given a flute, and when a concert would begin, he’d raise the instrument, pucker his lips, and move his fingers. He would go through all the motions of playing, but he never made a sound. This deception continued for two years.
Then a new conductor took over. He told the orchestra that he wanted to audition each player personally. One by one they performed in his presence. Then came the flutist’s turn. He was frantic with worry, so he pretended to be sick. However, the doctor who was ordered to examine him declared that he was perfectly well. The conductor insisted that the man appear and demonstrate his skill. Shamefacedly, he had to confess that he was a fake. He was unable to “face the music.”