PSALM 25:9
“He leads the humble in what is right, and teaches the humble his way.”
This thing will rock your world if you let it.
It’s a powerful prayer called the Litany of Humility, written by Cardinal Merry Del Val.
This litany has helped me grow in such intimacy with Christ as He has shown me how to assume a posture of true humility.
Different lines of the prayer have stuck out to me in different seasons of my life. Sometimes I even write my own shorter version of this litany to include specific things I am struggling with.
From the desire of being understood, Deliver me Jesus.
From the fear of being rejected, Deliver me Jesus.
A popular definition for humility has come from Rick Warren’s book A Purpose Driven Life. In this book he says, “Humility is not thinking less of yourself; it is thinking of yourself less.”
This idea is so important when praying this prayer or any similar prayer because humility is not putting yourself down, it’s always elevating others. It means less of your thought life is focused on you, but rather on Christ and those He’s placed with you.
After reading this prayer you may be thinking, “woah this is a dangerous prayer to pray!” Yeah, it really is.
It’s about as counter cultural as you can get. But that’s just it see… Jesus came to turn the world completely on its head! He came to bring His upside-down Kingdom. When the world says take pride, He says humble yourself.
JAMES 4:6 b
“God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.”
LUKE 1:52
“He has brought down the mighty from their thrones
and exalted those of humble estate.”
I have learned a lot about humility on the race.
* I’ve learned that humility is for the arrogant and insecure. Both are rooted in pride as they look at self more than they look at Christ and others.
* God has taught me that He not only calls me to display humility in my words and actions, but also in my thought life.
* He’s shown me that it is very possible to take pride in how humble you are – as crazy as that sounds. This has informed me of how to successfully speak life into humble people without giving Satan a foothold to lead them back into pride.
* The Lord has taught me what it means to have a motivations/heart check when I am making decisions. My choices should not be out of selfish ambition or conceit but should count others as more significant every. single. time. Do you ever see Jesus putting himself first for these reasons? No way José.
* Humility sometimes looks like taking ownership of your failures even if no one else follows suit… it takes courage and is dad-gum-difficult.
* I’ve seen that I am desperate for God’s grace to give me a humble perspective, because I can’t muster it on my own in a culture that tells a story of pride.
* Christ’s example of humility in Philippians 2:1-10 should be what I strive for. My motivation to be a humble leader should be to imitate Christ and bring Him glory. Simply stated, if I want to lead with humble heart I must lead others to Jesus and not myself.
MATTHEW 23:12
“Whoever exalts himself will be humbled,
and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.”
I would love love love to hear your thoughts on this subject or prayer, so feel free to reach out to me or comment below!
Over and out,
Julia
