humility

My entire life, I grew up being told to think "less of myself and more of others." Aka, beat yourself down and serve others without a thought of yourself.
To be humble, you must not accept compliments but think of yourself as absolutely nothing. Worthless. Not deserving of any kind word or deed.

And then at LIFE group tonight, my group leader defined humility as something totally different and it changed my view of what I had been taught about humility and self-worth my whole life.

"Humility does not mean you think any less of yourself, but changes your focus."

I'm not basing my self-worth on how terrible I am in comparison to others. I'm basing it on God's view of me. I'm not focused on how I don't deserve something, but how worthy God is for making me like this and saving me.

It's not that I am to think less of myself as in "I am a terrible person" but to think less often of myself. To focus on other people and serve them, but do so because of love not because "if you don't serve people all the time you are prideful."

I've always thought that thinking of myself at all was selfish. Thinking good thoughts of myself means that I'm self-centered and stuck up.

But maybe tonight God has spoken into me that my view of this is wrong.
I don't have to beat myself down in order to be humble. It's not a sin to accept compliments. I don't have to constantly tear myself down. I can accept other people's encouragements and in turn breathe life into them.
Fill myself up to overflowing so that I can pour God's love and truth into other people's lives.
<3jen