The Goodness Of Dirt

What if someone handed you an envelope, claiming that within was the secret to living your very best life – the life God always meant for you to have? One where you experience:

  • Incredible freedom
  • A settling contentment
  • Less struggle with low self-esteem
  • Reduced anxiety
  • A healthy confidence to do the things God asks
  • A resilience to navigate trials calmly and with grace
  • No fear of serving as Jesus served
  • No worries about proving or protecting one’s reputation
  • An ability to not be easily offended
  • The ability to honestly deal with rare but legitimate offenses in respectful, and therefore, more effective ways
  • A deeper, richer, and more satisfying relationship with Jesus.
  • A genuine aptitude for “really” loving others with God’s love (as Romans 12 and 1 Corinthians 13 describe)

And what if when you opened the envelope, you discovered a single, plain sheet of paper on which just one simple word was written?

Humility.

Would that have been your first guess?

Maybe it was. But if not, you’re in good company. A lot of us don’t naturally jump to seeing humility as the route to living our best life.

And why would we?

The word’s root origin is humus. Which means “earth” or “ground.” Dirt. A word often used to insult.

And it doesn’t help that “humility” sounds a little too much like “humiliation” (also from the word humus). Perhaps images of a person who is groveling, trembling, self-loathing, self-degrading, and living far beneath their potential come to mind. Or stern faces intended to humiliatingly scold anything perceived to be prideful behavior. Maybe even painful memories of feeling humiliated.

But humility does not mean the same thing as humiliation.

Humility is simply the original way of seeing life and going about daily tasks placed in the human heart from the moment God first formed Adam. From dirt. Which is why the word human also comes from the word “humus” and means, “earthling” or “earthly being.” Dirt man.  (Fun fact: the Hebrew word for Adam is Adamah, which means “ground.”)

All of this vocabulary math adds up to the sum of what humility truly is. The most original, “grounded,” reality-based, and rightful way of seeing ourselves and others. Formed from the dirt for God’s purposes and dependent on Him to fulfill them. 

However, through sin-lies, we have been brainwashed to dread, look down on, distrust, and despise humility. The state of being humble (level with the ground) can seem like a vulnerability and must be willfully chosen to feel like the rich blessing that it is.

Humiliation, on the other hand, could be described as an unchosen push to the ground. Pride is always at the root of a fall into disgrace (Proverbs 11:2 16:18) because you can’t knock a person down who chooses to stay on the ground. As Mother Theresa, one of the greatest modern examples of what it is to be a humble servant said, “If you are humble, nothing will touch you, neither praise nor disgrace, because you know what you are.”  Sounds like a pretty good deal!

If humility is such a rich blessing holding many benefits, how do we overcome pride?

By continuously and unashamedly acknowledging that we are hopelessly plagued with it. Just like everyone else around us. And we all will be for the rest of our lives. Because pride is simply the default setting in every human heart used to shield us from feeling invaluable and unlovable in the face of our weaknesses, limitations, and failures., we all turn to it for comfort. Naturally. As creatures miraculously formed from dirt into the image of God, we weren’t designed to view ourselves through the eyes of a hateful, loathing being like Satan. None of us feel OK with the ways sin has distorted our original, humble design.

It takes grace from God (and His humble followers) to create the safe space we need in order to embrace this vulnerability. Humility can only be truly restored in us while spending time in the presence of Jesus. In this place we can live comfortably in the reality that we are only human. And since the Fall, also broken and messy. But that He still places high value on our lives. This has nothing to do with us, who we try to be, how we compare to anyone else, or good things we try do for Him.

And it is this unconditional love that inspires us to surrender to His tailor-made journey of growing good fruit from our dirt as we abide in Him and let Him make us who and what He wants us to be. Rich, beautiful, miraculous dirt out which He can grow good fruit.