The secret to life’s highest fulfillment.

I have experienced God’s miraculous healing that left me speechless. My heart overflowed with joy when I saw God’s perfect plans unfolding in my life- the beautiful way I met my husband and His faithfulness in carrying that out into our marriage. I also couldn’t believe God’s provision and care in how He opened the door for us to build our own home shortly after our wedding. My feet have walked on the farthest shores and my eyes have seen the wonders of the world. Now I know that if we delight in God He will give us the desires of our hearts. Life brings us many joys and they are wonderful to experience but what I have discovered is that one joy is the greatest of all. It is life’s highest fulfillment. No earthly joy can compare to the joy of being able to humble yourself. When God gave me the undeserved grace to do that- I simply couldn’t believe that I have missed it for so long! Humility is not something you might think about often but upon seeing the extravagant blessing that it carries with it, I prayerfully make humbling myself the very purpose of my existence. How could I have missed it? It has been the answer to all my dilemmas. I missed it because it’s not something that comes naturally. It actually takes effort. Sacrifice. Discipline. But God alone is well able to crown us with this divine virtue. Humility is not an optional branch of our character, it is the very root of Christ-likeness. Without humility, we are unable to display God’s character and we can never be worthy enough to enjoy God’s blessings to the fullest and to treasure them because we will be blind to their brilliance. Pride blinds us and we might not even realize that we are blind unless God makes us understand our state. Pride is the very root of jealousy, anger, and every work of our ego. It is pure decay. Cancer. Rottenness to the very bone. I still can’t believe just how much joy becomes mine when I choose to humble myself and how my entire existence changes from shadows into the most radiant light! It is making yourself nothing before God and acknowledging that He alone is everything that fills your soul with the heaviest, thickest, deepest, and purest joy. In Proverbs 22:4, the Bible clearly says that, The reward for humility and fear of the Lord is riches and honor and life. Everything we ever wanted is found in humbling ourselves and the very essence of humility is fearing God. When you fear God, you honor and respect Him because you are aware of who He is and that though He is extremely merciful, He with nevertheless cause us to suffer the consequences of our sin because He loves us with the most perfect of love. When we live our lives humbly, God blesses us with spiritual and material riches, He exalts us to great honor, and gives us the most abundant of life. Philippians 2:5-8 is so clear on the fact that we need to choose Christ’s mindset and that we are called to a life of humility. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. It took me such a long time to finally understand that Christ wants us to be humble! I liked to think of his wisdom, power, and every other of His attributes but somehow I failed to see His undeniable humility. He left for us a path and He calls us to follow in His footsteps. If the Son of God, God of very God, could humble Himself and chose to show us through His life this overlooked quality in such a vivid portrait; then I can’t help but realize that humility is the very mark of Christ-likeness and that it should be the sole focus of our existence. I used to see humility as something undesirable but that couldn’t be farther from the truth! Humility is the most beautiful characteristic and there is no greater joy than living your life to bring God glory and not to exalt yourself! Christ’s humility is also clear to see in the way that He chose to do the will of the Father, even when that meant paying the highest price. We are also called to pay this high price of dying to ourselves but there is no greater privilege than that because it is such an undeserved blessing to be set free from the chains of self that keep us focused on ourselves and to be able to soar on the highest heights through God’s Spirit. Words can’t describe the joy of escaping from yourself because nothing good, worthy, or noble lives inside of us, no matter how great we might consider ourselves. In Luke 14:11, Jesus tells us plainly, For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted. We all want to be great but the only way to true greatness is by humbling ourselves. This verse promises both a curse and a blessing. It speaks of a fall if we are proud but also of a rise if we are humble. Humble yourself and God will exalt you! Choose to empty yourself, live your life for others, and choose the will of God above your own and you will discover the secret to true, lasting, radiant joy…