Be Thou Humble

Humility is such a multi-faceted thing. You may be completely humble in one area, and not at all in another. It's a quality that you can attain and lose very quickly. When thinking about humility, my first reaction was that I feel I am a humble person. I don't in anyway feel conceited or boastful...I don't feel like I think I am better than anyone else.

But, I am not truly humble. Especially, because I thought to myself, "I am."

I like to be right. Who doesn't? Who likes to be wrong? No one. It's a really hard thing to admit when you are wrong...it comes with lots of feelings of vulnerability. It's like opening your soul to someone when you admit to them that you are wrong and humble yourself before their mercy. I've felt that feeling completely, and been so built up in my pride that I am too afraid to let it down, and therefore will be wrong and still not admit it. I've done this especially to my husband, and thats so not fair. Sometimes, we don't even necessarily have to be completely wrong. I've been in a situation where someone I knew and I both felt valid in our concerns and points, and realistically, we both could feel the way we felt. However, we both could have sat and argued our points back and forth and without the humility to accept that we might have hurt the other person, whether intended or not, we might never have gotten past our own selfish points of view. Luckily, we both were able to humble ourselves enough to apologize for our misunderstandings and move beyond the problem. Without humility, that never would have happened.

Pride is a dangerous thing. From Stand A Little Taller :

"WALK IN HUMILITY AND PRAYER

Be thou humble and the Lord they God shall lead thee by the hand, and give thee answer to thy prayers. ~D&C 112:10

There is no place for arrogance in our lives, no place for conceit, no place for anything of that kind. We are very ordinary people in many respects. We must walk our own way. We are here to do a work, to make something of our lives, and God our Eternal Father will bless us in so doing if we will walk in humility and prayer."

Humility is definitely something that has to be made with a concsious effort. In fact, if we think, " I am so humble..." we actually probably are not, because we are boasting about it. The most humble people would probably never say it.

And to me, true humility is recognizing God's hand in our lives. So much of our world today is "self-proclaimed". Many people feel they can do it all themselves, without any help from a higher power. Many people don't acknowledege God's presence at all and are thus built up in their pride for themselves and all they've accomplished. If we as a society, nation or world are so prideful that we remove God's presence from our lives, He will be forced to humble us.

Humility is a process. As I said above, I think that there are times and areas of my life where I feel complete humility and submissivness to the Spirit. But there are other areas where, whether I want to believe it or not, I have pride. President Hinckley acknowledged that we are here in this life to accomplish things, to "make something of our lives". With those accomplishments, does come a sense of pride in your work. It's how we react and treat others that shows the true nature of our pride. Whether we are boastful and conceited about the things we've done, or show gratitude for opportunities to learn, grow, progress and help others through those accomplishments.

This is something I am still learning. There is a fine line between feeling humble and being truly humble...its definitely a tough thing to decipher. I think truly if our heart is always in the right place and we are acknowledging God's hand in all we do, we are on the right path.