The Double Four-Letter Word We All Love to Hate

Near the end of my conversation with Dr. Jeannie Constantinou, we came to the subject that no sincere Christian can avoid forever: humility.

Not the greeting-card version. Not the social-media version where we announce how humbled we are while making sure everyone notices. I mean the real thing. The kind of humility that requires us to admit we do not yet understand everything, we will never understand everything, cannot possibly master everything, and are most definitely not as spiritually mature as we we would like to imagine.

Humility is a hard word for modern people, especially modern Americans. We like shortcuts. We like formulas. We like the feeling of progress. We like being able to say, “I’ve got this figured out.”

But spiritual life does not work that way. You cannot force the maturation process of a child, and you cannot force the maturation process of the soul.

Sometimes it does not make sense. Over time, it might. But it never will completely.

That’s why it’s called a mystery.

Humility means letting go of what we think we’ve mastered, and trusting in a plan and plane higher than what we perceive here and now.

Humility is the double four-letter word we all struggle with. It might make you laugh, but there is truth in it.

Humility offends us because it asks us to become teachable. It asks us to receive before we explain, to obey before we fully understand, and to trust before we can control the outcome.

That is not weakness. It is the beginning of wisdom.

And perhaps this is one of the great gifts of the Orthodox way: it does not flatter our need to be experts. It invites us to become children again.