{"id":20,"date":"2009-03-12T13:16:35","date_gmt":"2009-03-12T17:16:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.cuneogtd.com\/jbarry\/?p=20"},"modified":"2009-03-18T18:25:34","modified_gmt":"2009-03-18T22:25:34","slug":"humility","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/old.jbarrywatts.com\/blog\/2009\/03\/12\/humility\/","title":{"rendered":"Humility"},"content":{"rendered":"

OK, my friends who are reading this are belly laughing now that Barry Watts would dare\u00a0write anything about humility. But, let\u2019s think about this together.<\/p>\n

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Humility isn\u2019t weakness. Power can be humbly expressed, and is when you recognize that you aren\u2019t strong, mighty, or powerful in and of yourself. The power comes through you, not from you. On the other hand, false humility often projects itself when appropriate praise and honor is deflected, when soft weakness is offered where strength is needed, when you hold back when your world (or company, or family, or church) need you to step-up, speak-up, and stand firm.<\/p>\n

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\"humility\"<\/a>A pastor friend and I were visiting recently about a professional we both knew who\u2019d come upon some hard times, gotten into some trouble, lost licensure and certification, and ultimately all the family\u2019s substantial income. The pastor said \u201cI don\u2019t sense that (anonymous) has really taken responsibility and repented. I think (anonymous) continues to place blame on others.\u201d<\/p>\n

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In my own life, I\u2019ve discovered that you can\u2019t ever become something greater than you are, until you are empty of yourself. Until you can stand before God and say with the Old Testament Prophet Isaiah \u201cWoe is me. I am a sinner.\u201d and sing with the saints \u201cNothing in my hand I bring, only to Thy cross I cling\u201d then you are still full of yourself, and there\u2019s no room for God to work in your life.<\/p>\n

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Many of us will eventually get empty; either voluntarily, or by violent force. We\u2019ll come to the end of our rope and when we do, then, our usefulness to God begins to bloom. That\u2019s the way it happened with me. My usefulness to God was limited when I was a clergyman because I was terribly insecure and felt that I needed to protect myself. I wasn\u2019t honest and real, because I feared what people would think of me. When I reached the end of my own rope and embraced emotionally what I knew intellectually—that God loved me because He was good, not because I was impressive—then I grew very comfortably in my own skin, no longer needed to impress, and found myself in an open and teachable frame of mind. That\u2019s when God opened His rich truths to me and I began to grow and become what God wanted me to be all along: a tool in His hand (remember, the tool doesn\u2019t get credit for the masterpiece, the craftsman does).<\/p>\n

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Humility is required for learning. I\u2019ve discovered that people who need to speak can\u2019t listen and who need to teach can\u2019t learn. It takes humility to be quiet, to learn, to consider ideas to which you may at first want to react negatively. It is humility to stand before someone and say \u201cplease teach me what you know.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Ultimately, you and I can either be full of ourselves, and there\u2019ll never be room for the greater things in our life. Or we can quiet ourselves, open our heart and mind, learn, stretch, grow, develop, and become effective in our living—a person truly worth knowing.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t let your ego get in the way of your progress.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

OK, my friends who are reading this are belly laughing now that Barry Watts would dare\u00a0write anything about humility. But, let\u2019s think about this together. Humility isn\u2019t weakness. Power can be humbly expressed, and is when you recognize that you aren\u2019t strong, mighty, or powerful in and of yourself. The power comes through you, not […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[4,10,11],"class_list":["post-20","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-god","tag-humility","tag-learning"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/old.jbarrywatts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/old.jbarrywatts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/old.jbarrywatts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/old.jbarrywatts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/old.jbarrywatts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/old.jbarrywatts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28,"href":"https:\/\/old.jbarrywatts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20\/revisions\/28"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/old.jbarrywatts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/old.jbarrywatts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/old.jbarrywatts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}