Looks like I'm having seconds...
on pie. And I wish it was pecan pie or my mom's awesome famous apple pie or (and I canNOT believe I am saying this) pumpkin pie. I find pumpkin pie disgusting...it's just....kind of wet. Sometimes there's even a little lake on top - what is WITH that pie? (my dad made this observation). But right about now, I think it probably would taste better.
WAY getter than Humble Pie.
I also have a feeling I've written about this before. That's why having seconds feels appropriate in so many ways.
And a slice - it can be served up any day, any time.
One can act pridefully, self-focused, strutting like a stupid peacock...and a slice is coming. You're gunna bite it if you strut. Or better put: "Pride comes before the fall." - Proverbs 16:18
Or it can come when gifts are given, grace is bestowed, underserved favor is lavished upon a person and one is made to feel small from a grand gesture. Humbled. There's just a lot of ways humility shows up.
And let's be real, so much has been written on humility over the decades.
But here's what hits me right now from C.S. Lewis: "True humility is not thinking less of yourself; it's thinking of yourself less."
After a humbling experience we may be tempted to belittle ourselves - tell others how much we aren't great at a thing....but there it is again. That self-focus....pity or pride...it's all still naval gazing. And we'd still be stuck staring at that dang slice of pie.
But C.S. Lewis, so rich with wisdom, hits it on the head. Humility is thinking of yourself less often. It's shifting the whole view. Instead of staring at the mirror, it's looking out the window. It's thinking of others. Thinking of the whole bigger picture. Thinking of the One who created it all. Thinking of the gifts we can give back to the Creator and the creation. It's about gifts we can give. Not what we can have for ourselves.
It's upside down. Backwards. And is complete and utter war on our natural self. Thank God there's grace a la mode. Check out this pattern already lived out for us:
"Think of yourselves the way Christ Jesus thought of himself. He had equal status with God but didn’t think so much of himself that he had to cling to the advantages of that status no matter what. Not at all. When the time came, he set aside the privileges of deity and took on the status of a slave, became human! Having become human, he stayed human. It was an incredibly humbling process. He didn’t claim special privileges. Instead, he lived a selfless, obedient life and then died a selfless, obedient death—and the worst kind of death at that—a crucifixion.
Because of that obedience, God lifted him high and honored him far beyond anyone or anything, ever, so that all created beings in heaven and on earth—even those long ago dead and buried—will bow in worship before this Jesus Christ, and call out in praise that he is the Master of all, to the glorious honor of God the Father." - Philippians 2:5-11
What we are going to want to do is welcome the helping. Take up our fork, dig in, and then look up, look out, look around. I bet we could even give thanks for the slice when we're done. Which has to be part of the "selfless and obedient" duo we see repeated right above in that passage. Jesus - He could have claimed all kinds of privileges. And didn't. Not even once. He came, ate humble pie, and then gave His life.
Which can seem dramatic and simplistic. And probably is for a blog. But I have to think that the obedient to death - the death to self bit - is the really the whole thing. It's the whole entire thing.
Humility. And the grace to say thank you for it. May we welcome it. Which is easier said than... eaten.