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We are All of Us Infinitesimally Small and Ludicrous Creatures

I was listening to this sermon by John Stott this morning, and he closed with these five steps to humility from Michael Ramsey.

1. Thank God, often and always, carefully and wonderingly, for your continuing privileges. Thankfulness is the soil in which pride does not easily grow.

2. Take care about confession of your sins. Be sure to criticize yourself in God’s presence: that is your self-examination.

3. Be ready to accept humiliations. They can hurt terribly, but they help you to be humble. There can be trivial humiliations. Accept them. There can be bigger humiliations. All these can be so many chances to be a little nearer to our humble and crucified Lord.

4. Do not worry about status. There is only one status that our Lord bids us to be concerned with, and that is the status of proximity to himself.

5. Use your sense of humor. Laugh about things, laugh at the absurdities of life, laugh about yourself, and about your own absurdity. We are all of us infinitesimally small and ludicrous creatures within God’s universe. You have to be serious, but never be solemn, because if you are solemn about anything there is the risk of becoming solemn about yourself.

I am praying for humility today… and the harmony— with God and with others— that it brings!