A Year Of Humility (VII): Thinking Highly Of One's Self

 "For by the grace given to me I bid every one among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith which God has assigned him." - Romans 12: 3

Among the many less than desirable virtues that I hold, one of the biggest remains my self-opinion.

I have the rather annoying (and embarrassing) tendency of considering myself one of the better people in  a room.  If you had to ask me why I came to believe this (especially in lieu of any actual accomplishments or data), I would likely tell you this derives from a combination of growing up in a small community where I was on the better end of educational success and a rather crazy belief that somehow I can make any circumstances work out to my advantage no matter what they are.  

What this results in is a smug sort of silent superiority (I finally learned long ago that actually verbalizing this was a good way to look like an idiot; that much of a lesson at least took).  Entering most situations, I will tend to over emphasize my experience and intellect and thoughts just on the basis of who I think (or rather, past tense) thought myself to be.

As you might imagine from this being a meditation on humility, it has not gone as well as I might have wished it.

The reality - as I have been reminded time and time again over the years, as I was reminded again on my most recent trip - is this is simply not true.

Pride - or in this sense, thinking too highly of one's self - convinces us that we have more to offer than we might and that correspondingly others have less.  We emphasize ourselves and our experiences/thoughts/beliefs as being deeper or more relevant or just plain "better" than others.  Even if, as I have learned, they are not.

I am, if left to my own devices, a fairly judgmental person in that I can make quick decisions on people based on a minimum of information.  Fortunately for me, as noted above, I have at least learned to not be verbal about them.  Or as the saying goes, the best way to prevent people from thinking you are an idiot is opening your mouth and removing any doubt.  

But just because I do not open my mouth does not mean that the arrogance, the pride, is not there.

Paul, in this passage in Romans, is encouraging the believer to not think too highly of themselves. This comes just after the well known verses in Romans 12: 1-2, where he commands the believer not to be conformed to the world, but to be transformed by the renewal of our minds, that we can understand what the will of God truly is - good, acceptable, and perfect.

If we are transformed by the renewal of minds, coming to know and understand the will of God, we almost by default will not think too highly of ourselves - after all, what is our will and assessment of ourselves compared to that of God?  When putting our feeble efforts -  our intellect, our plans, our education, our efforts, our "knowing better" - against the God of the Universe, we rightly come up as having nothing at all.  

It is this thought that I need to carry with me into every encounter that I am in.  Not that I do not have something to bring to every situation, but not to think that I am somehow inherently better when I bring it.  Not thinking highly of myself means I realize that while I may have something to offer, it is not inherently because I am somehow better in any category; it is that I might have something of value to bring irrespective of who I am.

A servant, especially a servant representing the God of the Universe, does best by reflecting their Master, not themselves.