how humility restores hope

I think one of the characteristics of God that I love the most is His ability to use anything and everything working and rolling like a snowball toward His greater purpose and good. I think this is where our hope can most firmly root itself -- in absorbing and living out of the knowledge that God is doing something. With everything. Always. He wastes nothing.

When we despair, I often think it's because we've fallen back into trusting ourselves for what we need. Maybe we've gone through a season of trusting God and it doesn't seem to be making a difference, and so we pull back and begin to think that it must be we need to do something about it again. We fall for the lie that we can and should "build a life we love". There is certainly truth to the fact that we reap what we sow. What we build and what we do will lead us in a certain direction and toward a particular outcome. In some sense we can build our own lives. But it's less within our control than we think it is and our false sense of control is actually hurting us because we're taking on responsibility that isn't ours to begin with and it's heavy.

In Humble Roots, Hannah Anderson presents humility as summarized in Proverbs 16:9: "The heart of man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps." Both things are happening simultaneously with humility - planning, and leaving room for the Lord to work. Here are some ways she mentions that humility impacts our day-to-day decision making and long-term planning:

1. Dream. We are made to dream. "Dreaming is something distinct to humans, a privilege of being made in the image of the Creator." (p. 158) If God did not want us to be dreamers, He would not have created us that way! "But even as we dream, humility teaches us to never lose sight of who's actually in control."

2. Desire. Acknowledge that God is also the source of our desires. "And through Jesus, He is actively redeeming those desires. He is actively restoring your ability to want the right things in the right way. He is actively giving you a new heart. In this sense, the greater presumption is not found in speaking your desires but failing to acknowledge their existence in the first place. If they do not exist, how can they be reformed? If they do not exist, how can they be changed? [...] Humility teaches us to embrace desire as a means of learning to submit to God. It is precisely through the process of wanting certain things that we also learn to trust God to fulfill those desires or to trust Him when he changes them. It is precisely through the process of learning to plan that we learn to depend on a God who makes our plans happen. Pride, on the other hand, demands to know God's will before it will act. It balks and halts and refuses to move until success is guaranteed. In other words, sometimes the failure to plan is a form of arrogance that expects knowledge beyond our human capacity to know. When we refuse to plan before we "know", we are asking for the same level of knowledge about our future as God has." (p. 159) [...] Part of submitting to God also means recognizing that even our desires originate from Him. As much as you cannot make yourself or orchestrate the events of your life or shape your unique personality, you can no more create the desires of your heart. Like the lump of clay on the potter's wheel, we cannot ask, "Why have you made me like this?" We simply accept how we have been made. It is entirely possible, of course, that even our God-given desires are out of alignment. It is entirely possible that [her husband's] desire to be a country pastor could have been corrupted. He could have been motivated by the need to be a big fish in a small pond. He could have been motivated by a fear of another, less familiar context. He could have been motivated by a need to be needed. OR. Or God could be at work in his life. And if God was at work in his life, then his desire to be a country pastor could also have been the natural result of his gifting, temperament, and background. It could be the result of having grown up in a small country church and knowing almost instinctively its rhythms and rituals. It could be the result of our unique combination of gifting. It could be the result of a man who loves to garden and just wanted to go home to Virginia. It could be the result of everything God had already been doing in his life for the last thirty years. Ultimately when you acknowledge your desires and risk owning them, you are agreeing with God about who He has made you to be. You are relinquishing control. You are no longer reserving an option on your future, believing that you can make yourself whoever you want to be. By acknowledging your desires, you are embracing the truth that God has made you to be something very particular. And ultimately, this leads to rest. When you recognize that you love something and are gifted to do it, you must also immediately recognize that you do not love everything, and you are not gifted to do everything. Suddenly you realize your own limitations; desire humbles you. And suddenly you are free from the tyranny of "keeping your optinos open". You are free from the responsibility of feeling like you have to "do it all." You are free to do only what you have been made to do." (p. 162-163)

3. Trust. "Part of humility means trusting God with our plans and submitting to the possibility that they will not be fulfilled. We pursue certain ends, but we can't know the future. But part of humility also means trusting God with our plans and submitting to the possibility that they will be fulfilled in ways we cannot imagine. Because we can't know the future, we also don't know when He will choose to bless us with abundance despite all signs pointing to failure." I studied Ecclesiastes recently and was struck by the verse she mentions on page 167 -- "He who observes the wind will not sow, and he who regards the clouds will not reap" (Ecclesiastes 11:4). That is such a relatable passage of Scripture -- at least for me personally I just cannot think too much about how things are going to actually work. It's rarely what I expect, and it's always very debilitating for me to try to see my way through blocks. Just keep walking, just keep sowing.

4. Believe in God, instead of believing in yourself. "The fact that success comes without our efforts is testimony, yet again, to God's surpassing power and goodness. God delights to use small, out-of-the-way, unexpected means to showcase His glory precisely because it is small, out-of-the-way, unexpected means that appear to be least possible of success." (p. 168)

5. Embrace redemption. "Humility teaches us that God is actively redeeming the world." (p. 186). Because of this, we can create safe communities in the the midst of brokenness. We are trusting God to redeem -- not ourselves. And so we can admit need, we can be weak, we can find rest in confession and exposure of who we truly are. Because we are saying that we are not enough, we cannot single-handedly build our own lives. We need God -- again, from the inside out, not from the outside in. Not as an add-on, but as the very core of everything. When we believe that God is actively redeeming the world, there is no limit to our hope. HE WASTES NOTHING.

And finally: "Humble people understand that their work is not guarantee of success; but the humble also understand that the possibility of failure is no reason not to work."

I was really encouraged by Colossians 1:6 this morning... that the Gospel is going forth. There are so many times that I get lost in the shuffle of questions -- Is this where God wants me? Is this what God wants me to be doing? Is this how I should be focusing my time? Is this furthering the Gospel? Is anyone learning anything? Has anything I said into my children's ears in the past 24 hours formed any thinking or actions at all? Does it matter if I go to a certain event or a certain place or not? And it sinks further and further down into "Does anything that I do matter?" But it is so freeing to realize that there is something going on -- the Gospel is going forth -- whether we choose to participate in it or not. You would think that would be demotivating and maybe it is sometimes -- but also it's not. It's motivating because it doesn't depend on us. The limitations of our strength are not the limitations of what can happen in this world. How incredibly freeing. We instead have the beautiful opportunity to jump on the train that is already moving. We don't have to start it or steer it ourselves. We just have to join in the work that began on the Cross.