Three friends and I made our way to Olive Garden after church one Sunday. We needed some girl time together and it was the only day we could make it happen. Family commitments and ministry required us to get creative. Husbands and kids were sent off to fend for themselves as the Keller Sisters bonded over soup, salad, and breadsticks.
The four of us were united by a profound appreciation for the ministry of Tim Keller, or the person that I call “my pastor from afar.” God used his ministry to more fully teach me the gospel, and I in turn taught it to my three friends. I would listen to one of Keller’s podcasts and make them listen to it. I read his book Prodigal God and told them they had to read it. I may have even guilted them into reading it by saying, “If you love Jesus, you will read this book.” Not really, but they knew me well enough to know that my passionate recommendation was an invitation to know God more intimately. So they read the book and listened to the podcasts. Then we moved onto Keller’s Bible studies on Romans and Galatians. Afterwards, we officially became the Keller Sisters, lovers of Jesus and fans of Tim Keller who taught us how to love Jesus more.
Our lunch that day got off to a hilarious start when my friend Jane went to use the restroom. Marianna, Colleen, and I were sitting at the table talking when Jane came creeping back red-faced and laughing. As always, she was dressed in a way that caught your attention. Black and white striped pants were paired with a bright yellow cardigan that seemed to say, “I’m here!” She was hard to miss.
After she hemmed and hawed trying to tell us what happened, we finally figured out that she had gone into the men’s restroom instead of the women’s. In a hurry, Jane walked straight into a stall without looking around. Coming out of the stall, she was shocked to see urinals and a man standing there. She quietly crept past him and hightailed it into the women’s restroom to wash her hands. It was only God’s grace and mercy that prevented him from seeing her. She should have been caught, but Jane’s story reminded me that God never sets out to shame or humiliate us.
I have thought a lot about the difference between humility and humiliation, especially since shame has been a painful part of my story. As Christians, we sometimes use humility and humiliation synonymously, but the meaning and purpose of each is completely different. Humiliation seeks to shame and degrade. It creates a desire within us to hide and encourages pride rather than transparency. We see this in Genesis 3 when Adam and Eve sinned against God. They sewed fig leaves to cover their nakedness and hid from God among the trees. When God shows up in the garden, he doesn't come at them with guns blazing. He simply asked a question, “Where are you?” In other words, I see your humiliation and that you are hiding from it and me. You need to talk about it. Your transparency (AKA confession) will bring relief and looking to me for help is a response of humility. After all, I am the only one who can truly do something about your humiliation.
God was inviting Adam and Eve to exchange something destroying their lives for something and someone who could restore them. Humiliation is always about our focus and humility is always about our response. God invites us to shift the focus from ourselves to his offer of grace and mercy. Humility takes the bite out of humiliation because it deflates our pride and defangs our flesh. Humbleness enables us to rightly evaluate ourselves, our circumstances, others, and even God himself. He is no longer the source or cause of our humiliation, but the answer for it. We no longer need to hide from our unrighteous actions and sinful words or even silly circumstances like walking into the men’s restroom.
No one understands humiliation and humility better than Jesus Christ. After all, he personally experienced both. Jesus humbled himself when he became a man and took on the nature of a servant. He humbled himself as he stood before a kangaroo court who proclaimed him guilty and worthy of death. He humbled himself when he prayed for God to forgive his persecutors because they didn’t know what they were doing. He humbled himself when he cried out, “It is finished” and gave up his spirit entrusting himself to God the Father. All the while, Jesus hung on the cross in the most vile form of humiliation experienced by anyone. And because he was willing to experience both, we are free and empowered to give our most humiliating circumstances to Jesus without fear of him rubbing our faces in them. Like Adam and Eve, we come out from the places where we are hiding, humbly accepting there is only one who can truly do something about them.
Pamela Hall
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