Humility is the prime virtue to battle against the only sin. Fighting pride is part of our purpose in life, but it’s not clear we can ever be completely free from pride in this life. It’s an aspiration that we continue to strive for every day. We have to commit ourselves daily to align ourselves with the light of the Lord. Humility puts us back into the right relationship with God.

We cannot have a relationship with God with pride in the way. It disables us and blocks our relationship with God. Through humility, we can be our true selves as it gives a clearer mirror to shine God’s glory. Pride casts us down and distorts us into the masses of sin, and it taints us into little devils.

Every step we take must be towards becoming little gods like Christ. It’s the Christian aim. We have to push forward to incrementally lay down our pride, always striving to grow nearer and learn more from Christ’s example. It’s a sin and human nature to think that we can have power and claim our own self-sufficiency. Complete dependency and commitment is the only path, and it is paradoxically the most difficult and easy thing to do.

We might have fantasies about being the center of attention or being the main character. It’s easy to seek this immature form of pride that is tied to insecurity, vanity, and want of validation. It’s a special trap for me—maybe it’s the way I grew up, maybe it’s the things I was influenced by. In any case, I need to step back and realize I’m not the main character. This part of humility can be tough because our culture is so tied with the idea that being special means we’re above somebody else. We are special because we don’t deserve to be yet saved by grace. God picked us to be special but it gives us no special status above anybody else. We need to take this to heart and be gracious in all that we do. We must humbly serve in the background.

Look at our pets. They are meek and loyal, but to us, they are more special than any other. We can learn from them to not compare but just act in servitude.  I have a dog that teaches me so many lessons of living life with vitality, humility, loyalty, courage, and commitment. We must direct all focus to others and outward attention instead of trying to ruminate on ourselves and our relation to the world. If we need to think about ourselves, we should think about our relation to God. Meekness can be incidental and a label to describe someone in a certain situation. The primary focus can be the fruit of the spirit. Who are we? We are nobody. We are sinners. But through mercy and by God, we can be saved. This is why we should be meek.

We have reminders all the time of humility that make our lives harder. Shame, inadequacy, and feelings of insecurity remind us to reflect on our haughtiness, pride, and narcissism. We must pray that our hearts can be enlightened. God has called us but our pride blocks our ears. The journey to cleanse ourselves is difficult, but, once we take it, we realize the work is all being done by God. We are just handing the tools to the master; the weight of the tools is insignificant compared to the work, but even the tools feel heavy to a novice. To want to be with God is to be humble; to be humbled is to be loved.