One Way to Keep Yourself Humble — Remember Your Origins

Pride is something that we all struggle with to some degree. It has been at the root of mankind’s nature since the fall, and we will be doing battle with it until we are called home or the Lord returns.  There are many definitions for pride, but a simplistic one for our purposes can be that pride is thinking you are more than you really are.

Pride Robs God

When we struggle with our pride we think we are smarter than we are, more important than we are, more lovable, more worthy, more important, and so on, than we really are. When our pride flairs up, we begin to rob God of his glory and that is something that he is not willing to share. (Isaiah 42:8)

When our pride begins to control us, we say things we ought not to say, act in ways that are not pleasing to God, we lie, cheat, murder, steal and so on. A little leaven, leavens the whole bread for sure. (Gal. 5:9)

A Helpful Reminder

One of the most helpful ways to combat our pride is to remember where we came from: the dust.

Notice these words that we have in Gen. 2:7: “Then the Lord God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breathe of life; and man become a living being.”

To be frank, our humble origins are the dust that we walk on all throughout the day. There is no glorious past for mankind, just dust. But God, because he was so kind in his mercy, gave this dust life. The crazy thing is, these pieces of dust that he animated have been living in rebellion of him and thinking we are so great.

A Practical Way to Fight

So the next time you are tempted to think things like “I’m important, I’m too good for this, I should be treated better, etc,” remember your very humble roots — you came from the dust.

Joshua M. Greiner
Josh has been on staff with Faith since 2010. He graduated from Purdue University with a BA in Political Science (2008) and from Faith Bible Seminary with a MDiv (2013), The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary with a ThM in Biblical Counseling (2017) and is pursuing a PhD in Counseling from SBTS as well. He serves as the Pastor of Faith West Ministries, the Chaplin of the West Lafayette Fire Department, an instructor with Faith Bible Seminary, and a Fellow with the Association of Certified Biblical Counselors (ACBC). He is married to his wife Shana, and they have four children together.