When humility finally strikes

[Other posts to write: Practising sexual consent within marriage, also needing to be attuned to my husband.
My alternative to “falling in love” – choosing character – no falling about it. ]

Once again, I would really like to thank everyone who has been praying for me regarding my humility.

OK, so it appears that it may finally have happened, that God has struck me with a true and deep and hopefully lasting understanding of humility. And because we are talking about humility, it was kinda humbling.

The thing is, I have gone around around over the last few years thinking of myself as being quite a big deal. The sincere truth is that I have sincerely tried to be humble about it, but I have often failed miserably. While I remember, it also occurred to me today that the reason I have been so furious about a particular incident which I have ranted about incessantly on this blog is simply an ego thing, pure and simple, in that I was angry that this person did not recognise things about me which I thought should have been obvious.

Anyway back to humility. So today I was doing something, and I have to admit I was kinda indulging my big head as I was doing it. I was also thinking that if there was a potential Huggie-Wuggie out there who knew me, he would probably be able to see right through me and recognise the bigheadedness involved in it. And I was asking within my heart: “Lord, why do I struggle so much with humility?” I have always known that it is a matter of understanding which I just have not possessed. And as I was reflecting on it, I believe that God struck me with some of that understanding.

Perhaps humility means different things to different people. I have always known that the key to humility is in understanding that everything I have is from God.  And yet today, I believe that I grasped a really important fresh perspective. Now God has given me a lot, and whenever I let myself reflect on all those things, it invariably inflates my head. What struck me today was this understanding: while God has given me a lot, He has not by any means given me everything. For instance, He has not yet given me the amazing marriage that I dream of, where some people just get this dropped into their laps with seemingly no effort whatsoever. God gives everyone a lot for free (without requiring any particular effort on each person’s part).  Just because He has given me a lot, that does not make me better or more special than other people, because He has just given other people a different permutation of things. Now all these other things are still available, like a great marriage, but they clearly require some effort on my part, like intense prayer. And because I have tried so hard with my marriage but not received it, should drive it home that none of the things I do have are due to my own effort. There are lots of other things of course, like my business success etc. Additionally, while my health is outstanding, (thank You Lord!) it is not perfect. Also, I meant to write this as a PS to the other post – I definitely do not look as young as I thought I did! Actually, I’ve known for a long time that age is creeping up with me. And then there was that time, which I have been wanting to admit to for ages, when I refused to wear deodorant to work for about a month, until my supervisor finally had to say something. SOOOOO embarrassing! To be fair to myself, I was crazy stressed, but still, it is one of those things that I look back on and think: “Why, Tosin?!!!” And it is not as long ago as you might imagine, either.  You’d think that after doing that someone could not possibly nurture a big head, but clearly I have defied the odds!

So I finally got that, and to be honest it did bring me down a bit just because I had been so used to going around thinking so highly of myself.
But I have sincerely yearned to understand humility and I have prayed for humility for years,  (another thing that God has not given me “for free”)  and I have always admired people who walk with an intrinsic understanding of this.

As hypocritical as this may sound I have actually turned down people romantically for having an exaggerated idea of their own importance.  I definitely understand how unattractive a trait this is.
So Huggie-Wuggie, if you are reading this, and this is one of the things that may have put you off me, I hope that I can assure you that as an issue this is finally being dealt with. So now I really need to cultivate that understanding in my heart.  It is my prayer that from henceforth there will not be a trace of anything other than utter humility that emanates from me and my self-perception.