July 1: Humility Is Not Humiliation
Maybe the word “humble” makes you flinch. You have been humbled plenty. Courtrooms, hospital beds, the look on someone’s face when you showed up late again. Why would anyone ask for more of that?
“He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?”
Here is the good news for the first day of July. Humility and humiliation are not the same thing. Humiliation is being pushed down by shame. Humility is standing up straight and seeing yourself as you really are. Not better than others. Not worse. Just a person who needs God, like everyone else.
Step Seven reads, in the old wording, “Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.” Notice what it does not say. It does not say you fixed yourself. It does not say you earned anything. It says you asked. That is all humility is at its root. Asking, because you finally know you can’t do it alone.
You spent Step Four writing down what was wrong. You spent Step Five saying it out loud. In Step Six you became ready. Now you take the list of defects you already know so well and hand it to the One who can do something about it.
Micah puts it simply. Do what is right. Love kindness. Walk humbly with your God. Walk is a slow word. It means one step and then the next. Nobody sprints into humility. You walk into it, a day at a time, and God walks with you.
So this month is not about beating yourself up. It is about getting honest, asking for help, and then practicing something new. Patience where there was anger. Truth where there was hiding. Giving where there was grabbing. You will not do it perfectly. You are not supposed to.
One thing today
Write down one shortcoming you already know about from your inventory. Just one. Under it, write the opposite. If it was anger, write patience. If it was lying, write honesty. Keep that card in your pocket today.
A prayer
God, I don’t want to be humiliated anymore, and You don’t want that for me either. Teach me the kind of humility that sees clearly and asks for help. Walk with me this month, one step at a time. Amen.
Read what this step asks of you, in plain words, on the Step Seven page.
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