Can You Be Both Humble And Confident?

Lately, I felt the urge to talk about humility. I’ve been going through a season of my life where I felt I had to rely more on God and much less on myself, or my abilities. I learnt that as a Christian we gotta embrace learning to be humble, just like Jesus is.

When googling, I found that humility is defined as a lack of pride or being modest. I also came across an interesting definition which says that being humble implies a ‘low’ view of one’s importance. I don’t actually agree with that last definition as I don’t think Jesus wants us to have low self-esteem, we are very special and He wants us to value ourselves – it’s just sometimes we need to think about ourselves less! He wants our confidence to be in Him. The following verse, stated by Jesus ‘Apart from me, you can do nothing ’ – John 15:5 reinforces the idea that Jesus wants us to acknowledge that He (God) is our source of strength and that our gifts, good looks (yes!) and abilities come from Him!

“God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble” – James 4:6

Jesus wants us to be humble as He himself set the ultimate example: He, the King of Kings, came as a man, was born in a manger and submitted himself to his parents whilst on earth! Being humble is a way of reflecting Jesus and becoming more Christ-like.

A big part of humility is to serve others. Have you ever heard of this acronym JOY?
J for Jesus, O for others and Y for yourself.

Jesus came on earth to serve others; serving others bring us joy, and helps us not to be so focused on ourselves and our own needs. Learning to know what other people’s needs are will also help us to be humble and make us more grateful about our life and circumstances.

To be totally honest, being humble is not easy, especially as we are so wired to care only about ourselves. A good first step would be to pray to God and ask the Holy Spirit to change our hearts. As we genuinely ask Him, He will do the work, and our friends and family will get to see Jesus’ light through us. Wouldn’t that be awesome?