Humility and Exaltation: Collecting Dew From Heaven

(Another imaginary interview with Andrew Murray and his book Humility.)

MCF: Humility and exaltation do not seem to go together very well.  When I am lifted up, it's hard to stay humble.

AM:  Two things are needed.  Do what God say is your work: humble yourself.  Trust him to do what he says is his work: he will exalt you.

MCF:  How do I go about humbling myself?

AM: It is not your work to conquer and cast out the pride of your nature and form within yourself the lowliness of the holy Jesus.  No, this is God's work.  It is the very essence of how he lifts you up into the real likeness of the beloved Son.  What the commandment does mean is this: take every opportunity of humbling yourself before God and man.  Accept with gratitude everything that God allows from within or without, from friend or enemy, in nature or in grace, to remind you of your need of humbling and help you to it.  Reckon humility to be indeed the mother-virtue, your very first duty before God, the one perpetual safeguard of the soul.  Set your heart upon humility as the source of all blessing.  The promise is divine and sure: he that humbles himself will be exalted.

MCF: When I do this I find myself getting increasingly frustrated and tired.  How can I find a higher humility which lifts up my heart and soul rather than grinding me into dust?

AM: All God's dealings with people are characterized by two steps.  The first is the time of preparation. Command and promise mingle with the experience of effort and impotence, of failure and partial success.  But also there is the holy expectancy of something better which these awaken.  These experiences train and discipline people for a higher stage.  Then comes the time of fulfillment.  Faith inherits the promise and enjoys what it had so often struggled for in vain.  This principle holds good in every part of the Christian life, and is the pursuit of every individual virtue.

MCF:  This time of preparation can be discouraging.  Why doesn't God just give a person humility immediately?

AM:  It is grounded in the very nature of things. In all that concerns our spiritual growth, God must take the initiative. When that has been done, a person gets his turn. In the effort after obedience and attainment, he must learn to know his impotence and to die to himself in self-despair.  Then, voluntarily and intelligently, he is able to receive from God the end, the completion of what he had accepted at the beginning in ignorance. It is God who had been the Beginning of it all, before the person rightly knew Him, or fully understood what His purpose was.  Now at the end, he longs for and.welcomes God as the End, as the All in All.

To put it another way: we know the law of human nature: acts produce habits, habits breed dispositions, dispositions form the will, and the rightly-formed will is good character. It is no different in the work of grace. God works through persistently repeated acts to beget habits and dispositions and to strengthen the will, and comes with His mighty power and Spirit.  The humbling of the proud heart with which the penitent saint cast himself so often before God, is rewarded with the "more grace" of the humble heart.  In that heart the Spirit of Jesus has conquered, and brought the new nature to its maturity.  Now the meek and lowly One dwells there forever.

MCF:  It would not be surprising that I am afraid of the effort.  At the same time, though, I find myself hungry for the promise of being lifted up by God.  Any final words about humility and exaltation?

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AM:  This humility, my friend, is a secret of secrets.  It will help you to reap where you have not sown, and be a continual source of grace in your soul.  Everything that inwardly stirs in you, or outwardly happens to you becomes a real good to you, if it finds or excites in you this humble state of mind.  Nothing is in vain or without profit to the humble soul.  It stands always in a state of divine growth.  Everything that falls upon it is like a dew of heaven to it. Therefore, close yourself in this form of Humility.  Always be enclosed in it.  Let it be the clothes you wear.  Breathe nothing but in and from its spirit, see nothing but with its eyes, hear nothing but with its ears. Then, whether you are in the church or out of the church, hearing the praises of God or receiving wrongs from men and the world, everything will build you up and everything will help you grow in the life of God.

Lord, I long for you to lift me up.  I find myself beaten down by my desires and unable to fulfill them.  I want to turn them over to you.  I want to wait for you in humility so I might be wet with this "dew from heaven," this heavenly help, this grace that keeps on giving.  Let it be so.  Lift me up today as you teach me the joy of lowliness.  Amen.

Everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.  (Luke 18:14)