Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.
In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death—even death on a cross! Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed—not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence—continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose.
Do everything without grumbling or arguing, so that you may become blameless and pure, “children of God without fault in a warped and crooked generation.” Then you will shine among them like stars in the sky as you hold firmly to the word of life. And then I will be able to boast on the day of Christ that I did not run or labor in vain. But even if I am being poured out like a drink offering on the sacrifice and service coming from your faith, I am glad and rejoice with all of you. So you too should be glad and rejoice with me. - Philippians 2:1-18
Take as much pleasure in the success of another as with your own success. Don't just think less of yourself, think of yourself less. The situation that you are in right now is not about you. These are all things I try and remember when I try to live with humility. I repeat them over and over to myself, sometimes to no avail.
Part of this is from a sneaking suspicion that if I don't look out for my own interests (v.4) then no one else will and I will get blindsided by their ambition and their conceit. When I am more aware of myself, I realize that this is just another attempt to re-orient the universe so that the story is about me and-to be more exact-about me being the successful hero of the story. I am not the center of this story. I am not even the center of my own story. So I pray for reminders and I run phrases like the ones above as matras repeatedly through my head.
Grumbling and complaining are symptoms of this attempted ill-fated reorientation. I got a phone call the other day from a person who wanted to write a story about me for her publication. I got a note from a guy this past Friday asking if he could call me to talk about an article he is writing. The worst part is: to some extent these are part of my job, so I am always battling to check my motives. Am I doing it to help my company or am I doing it to build up my own reputation-my own brand? Worse, the truth is often a mixture of these. So the policy has become not to respond immediately and think about my motives. In the end, I ignored one and accepted the other.
I wonder if this is what Jesus had to go through when people wanted to shout to the world about his miracles and words. I do not know. But I do know that he had to tell some who witnessed what he did and what he said to be quiet. Being humble can sometimes be a complicated business.
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