“But he gives greater grace. Therefore he says: God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble. Therefore, submit to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Be miserable and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

We love stories of prideful people getting their comeuppance while humble people receive the honor and recognition they deserve. Arrogance is a trait we instinctively reckon at when we see it brazenly on display before us. At the same time, we are naturally drawn toward people who are constantly lifting up the people around them. And this is something pretty much every major religion points to as the way things should be in one form or fashion. But this wasn’t always the case. And it isn’t quite so common of a thing to think as we might expect. Yesterday at camp, we talked about having a humble heart. Here are a few things I learned.

In this section of his letter, Jesus’ brother, James, is talking about pride and it’s inherently destructive nature. We take this kind of thing as a matter of course, but for his original audience, this was simply not the case. Before Christianity burst onto the scene, while there were Jewish Scriptures talking about the importance of humility before God, nobody outside the Jews really paid any attention to them. Jesus and His followers changed that.

This idea of being humble before others, and especially before God, was a new one. That’s why James was giving them instructions on it. James says several different things here, but one stands out above all the rest. Someone who is prideful before God can expect His opposition in their lives. The person who is humble before God, on the other hand, can expect His help and support.

Yet what exactly does it mean to be humble or prideful before God? The idea here is fundamentally concerned with whether we are living our lives in light of reality or in the grip of a dangerous delusion. This is because humility is centrally concerned with honesty. The humble person is honest about the nature of reality, of God and of himself, while the prideful person is not.

The truth about reality is that God is God and we are not. Because of this, our lives are to be submitted to Him and His will. Whatever it is that we want must be subordinated to His will and desires. This is not only right, but good as well because He is righteous and holy whereas we are broken and sinful. Our natural desires are for our interests at the expense of those around us. God’s constant aim is for the good of His creation, including us. This is why the humble heart is fully submitted to Him.

James here tells us to weep and mourn as we seek to be cleansed from our unrighteousness. This is because of the realization that we have been living at odds with God and His will. We should repent with great grief over our lost innocence and time spent apart from Him. We should be broken-hearted at our sinfulness, wrecked by our unrighteousness. This realization is painful, but a necessary step on the road to embracing the Gospel and the life it brings us.

Last night, at our group devotional time, my Minister of Students, Nate, offered a great illustration of what this looks like. As we were all sitting around in rocking chairs, he had the kids all stand up in their chairs (with an adult holding it). Having a prideful heart is like standing on our own in a rocking chair. It is an unstable, risky affair. We might be able to do it okay for a while, but when things get shaky enough, we are going to fall. And, the longer we pridefully resist God, living in the grip of a damning delusion, the shakier God is going to make things because He loves us too much to leave us deluded about the nature of His world for long.

Then, Nate—who’s really tall—went around and lifted each kid up high enough that their heads touched the ceiling. This was far higher than any of them could have managed to reach on their own. Having experienced being lifted up—just like James says God will do for the humble in heart—he made the point. They could not have reached so high on their own. When they tried to get taller with the rocking chairs, they boosted themselves a little bit, but not nearly as high and their foundation was exceedingly shaky.

When we humbly seek God and His kingdom first and before whatever else it is we may desire, He will lift us up to accomplish and achieve far more than we could ever hope to do on our own. If we try to boost ourselves up, though, He will bring us down low so that we are in a better position to grasp and appreciate reality as it actually is. And the thing is: God knows and sees what kind of heart we really have. We can’t hide it from Him. We can try to pretend otherwise, but it’s far better to just face up to what is true and live in light of it. The sooner you do, the better.

—the humble heart is fully submitted to God
—humility as a virtue was an idea introduced to the world by the Biblical worldview
—pride is fundamentally a delusion about the world and how it works
—the prideful heart is working constantly for what it wants over everything else; this is an incredibly easy state to find ourselves in—in fact, it is our natural state
—Nate’s illustration (with credit) of being lifted up when we are humble vs. trying to stand on our own