Humility...

What is it?  A persistently elusive word, an unattainable state of the heart, a pure heavenly mindset?

My insightful friend Webster left me a little note, saying that humility consists in "lowliness of mind; a deep sense of one's own unworthiness in the sight of God, self-abasement, penitence for sin, and submission to the divine will."

So then, it's as simple as that.  Being lowly in my mind.  Truthfully?  I'm not sure how...there are moments, to be sure, when Christ IS all in my life.  Glorious moments when I see His glory so unobstructed that for a space of time I truly am nothing.  Yet, my mind, that logical, analytical, constantly whirring mind palace comes to life, and clouds my view.

See, that deep sense of my own unworthiness in the sight of God is a radically terrifying sense; if it could be simplified to something so small as that.  Honest recognition of His majesty, truth, and righteousness can do nothing but crush the root of pride in my heart.  Yet, that root is deep, and constant recognition of my unworthiness is painful.  Admission of my sin?  Agonizing.  Grasping my inability to pay with anything other than my life?  Harrowing.

Where to turn in this terrifying, agonizing and harrowing state?  To myself perhaps.  To self-abasement.  The act of bringing myself low, of humbling myself.  I find however, that in the mind palace, I possess the throne.  It isn't a low one at all, rather an elevated resplendent place.  Of my own power, I choose to remain.  I don't humble myself.

For all it's resplendence, the throne within that palace is my demise.  For encircling it are the annals of my life; it will take but the first sentence of the first page to reveal the truth, that sin, fleshly delights, lust, arrogance, selfishness, anger, pride, have stained those pages.  Try as I might to mask them with the brilliance of jewels, and rapturous colors that surround and fill that place, I find it all in vain.  For there comes another, a righteous one, whose glory is so great that if I looked upon the face of it, it would cost me my last breath.  That light penetrates the feeble walls of my palace, and before my eyes His perfection is a standard which by it's very nature, will never equate itself with my actions.  What then?  I didn't ask for His presence, this glory, this conviction He brings.

Yet, He came.  The blazing luminescence turns the palace to ash; the throne alongside; and annals perhaps last of all, for why would I let go of the shred of evidence for what DID measure up?  I know, really, it won't.  It will fall short, and then because this glory has shown His face, it will cost me my life.  My sin, will cost me my life.

Or a life.  He'll take another, but it has to be perfect if I am to live.  It already happened.  That God-man who walked this earth facing temptation yet remaining righteous.  He already died.  And that last shred of evidence?  Drenched in his blood now...but the purest white you ever saw.  It was His will.  The Divine will.  I couldn't resist His draw, not when I found out it was His own SON he killed with the weight of His perfect glory.

Elusive may be a word to describe humility, for God seems sometimes to be just that, undefinable to be sure.  The ashes of the palace that stir to cloud my vision will always lay in my heart, this side of heaven.  But the mindset, that I am free from sin; that the palace is now a temple built by another?  That the throne of my own power will never be enough?  Those truths my friend, reveal the answer.  That true humility is Christ; alone.  A status that I have been given, yet will not bear in full until I breath my last.