Fearlessly Courageous
Desk of Dennis Piller
2023-01-31
Click for Audio
What Type of Virtue is Humility? Is it still alive?
Humility is a repressing or moderating virtue opposed to pride and vain glory or that spirit within us which urges us to do great things above our strength and ability, and therefore it is included in temperance just as meekness which represses anger is a part of the same virtue. I went to a Salesian Catholic boarding school in Tampa for 3 yrs in middle school. It was founded by John Bosco (Don Bosco), a young priest who focused his concern on the orphaned and homeless child laborers he encountered in Turin, Italy. In 1859, Don Bosco founded the Salesians to befriend, educate, and help these impoverished boys. Humility was a key virtue he taught his boys. It is a virtue out of fashion today for young boys and people at large. Jesus is the model of humility. Just imagine, as a young 12 yr old lad he is found in the temple teaching. Luke 2:39 He returns to Nazareth and for the next thirty years he is subject to Mary
and Joseph, two human beings. He lived in complete submission and respect.
Humility pleases God immensely and makes us acceptable to one another. If the virtue of humility is so difficult for us as adults, it is much more difficult for youngsters, especially teenagers. Too many at their age yearn to move away from home to find refuge in the world of their friends and peers. As they try to assert themselves, they begin to have conflicts, disputes, and little outbursts with their elders. They rebel against any advice and shrug off any kind of parental control by lying. They constantly hide their wrongs, their poor performance at school, their questionable friends, loose language outside the home, stealing money, and perhaps their
first experience of smoking or trying some soft drugs.
Over the years their little lies grow much bigger and have greater consequences that will affect
their relationships with their spouses, families, and their employers.
It was for this reason that Don Bosco put these recommendations into the prayer book he wrote
for his boys.
“Here are two things that I earnestly recommend to you. First: be honest with your parents and your teachers. Do not try and cover up your shortcomings, much less deny them. Always candidly tell the truth; lies, not only offend God, they make you children of the devil, the prince of lies. When you know the truth and you still choose to lie, you become a disgrace before your companions, and you earn the displeasure of your superiors. Secondly, I recommend that you take the advice and heed the warnings of your superiors as a rule for your life and your work. Blessed are you if you do these things. You will always be happy and all that you do will be done with a pure motive and to the edification of those around you. So, in conclusion, let me just say: give me an obedient youngster and I will make him a saint and on the other hand a disobedient youngster is on the road to lose all the other virtues as well” (from The Companion of Youth).” Likewise you younger people, submit yourselves to your elders. Yes, all of you be submissive to one another, and be clothed with humility, for “God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.” 1 Peter 5:5 There is much here to be said about all of us. We at Grace Family Church have a very large vibrant youth ministry that meets on Wednesday nights. We are always in need of humble adults who are willing to invest their time in the youth of today. Pray about getting involved. Humility allows you to see your weaknesses and embrace God’s strength; it allows you to see your insufficiency and embrace His adequacy; it allows you to see your poverty and embrace His riches; it allows you to see your sin and embrace His righteousness; it allows you to see your lack and embrace His supply. ~Roy Lessin Humility is not measured by what you do or don’t do. It is not measured by what you say or how you look. Humility is by the attitude and disposition of your heart. It is measured by your surrender, your obedience, your faith, and your complete dependency upon God.
~Roy Lessin.
“Lord, I love being nothing so that YOU can be my all in all.” The Change in me Casting Crowns
