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Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up. (James 4:10)
                To be fair, people have never been a humble lot. We’re impressed with ourselves. But it seems to me that we’re a lot less humble now than we were when I was a kid – and when I was a kid, we were landing men on the moon. But we are definitely not a humble lot, today.  We’re told we should have SELF-esteem. Shaming anyone is wrong. We need to practice SELF-affirmation. We need to promote ourselves at every opportunity and we all deserve everything that the super-rich deserve. Just think positively and you’ll get everything you deserve, and anyone who stands in your way is to be trampled down. 
          There’s stuff on social media at the moment about toxicity and Narcissism. The solution to both (some claim) is for these people to have more self-esteem. People seem to think that the opposite of thinking too highly of oneself is to think negatively about oneself – to see oneself as a slug, a useless piece of trash…. It’s a sort of obvious parallel: too high… too low… high… low… positive…negative. 
          What if the issue of pride v humility is not about high and low, but about unrealistic and realistic? Or about drunk (whether on alcohol, ego, or whatever)  and sober? What if being humble is about recognizing that you aren’t God, you aren’t in charge, it’s not about you? Neither is it about it not being about you. It’s about the One who actually is God, just because He is. Accepting that He is God and you aren’t is a big step on the way to humbleness.

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