Boasting About Tomorrow

There may be something we can learn about humbling ourselves from those occasions when we are humbled by circumstances. I have often said that being made humble does not count for character. When our pride gets knocked down by some extremely stupid and embarrassing mistake, or when we get cut off at the knees by someone who far excels in something with which we were prideful, we are humbled. We did not choose in this case to be humble. We merely suffered a loss of pride. When our cause for pride is taken away by an economic crisis that guts our investment port folio, or a company crisis that results in our demotion or loss of job, then we are made humble. We have not achieved humility out of desire to be virtuous.

We may be able, in those humbling experiences, to learn how to be humble when later we can choose it. One lesson we might learn is how little we can take credit for the things over which we swell with pride and how little control over our circumstances we actually have. The athlete who excels today could tomorrow be a paraplegic. The business owner today could tomorrow be the janitor. The bountiful crops today could tomorrow suffer drought. The mansion today could tomorrow be in ashes. The great nation today could tomorrow be in ruins. Whatever we enjoy today should be counted as a blessing, not cause for boasting. “Do not boast about tomorrow, for you do not know what a day may bring forth.” (Proverbs 27:1)

In the New Testament book of James, after his instruction, “Humble yourselves in the presence of the Lord, and He will exalt you,” James then gives to us this council. “Come now, you who say, ‘today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, and spend a year there and engage in business and make a profit.’ Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away. Instead you ought to say, ‘If the Lord wills, we will live and also do this or that.’ But as it is, you boast in your arrogance; all such boasting is evil." No matter our circumstances, whether rich or poor, powerful or weak, smooth sailing or ship-wrecked, we must choose to be humble. “But may it never be that I would boast, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ . . .” (Galatians 6:14)