1. We are very slow to learn the lesson of our own utter inability. Pride is a very dull scholar in the school of experience; and often and often she will beat about, seeking for every possible excuse for the failure of which she herself is the sole cause. We feel at some time, perhaps, that our hearts are prompted by an earnest desire to pray. We become for the moment keenly alive to our own wants; but when we attempt to pray, we find the edge of that sense of need is gone. The heart appears full, but when we kneel we find it empty. Like Tantalus of old, we anticipate a rich draught of the brimming flood; but as we stoop to drink, it is gone. Vexed and disappointed we murmur at our privation, but are too blind to see its cause. We cannot see that our own self-conceit lies at the root of our failure. We think we can do it of ourselves—we anticipate rich heart communion; but we are miserably mistaken, because we do not realize that we are not sufficient of ourselves to think anything as of ourselves, but that our whole sufficiency is of God. We forget that it is ever true, and must continue to be the heart experience of all the sons of God till the end of time, that we know not what we should pray for as we ought. We forget that, for real, successful prayer, a Divine energy of prayer must quicken our hearts; that the Holy Spirit of God must help our infirmities, making intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.
A full hand cannot take Christ. [Note: A. A. Bonar, Wayside Wells, 177]
It is very significant that in Solomon’s catalogue of “six things which the Lord hateth, yea, seven which are an abomination unto him,” the very foremost place is given to what few men would consider a sin at all—“a proud look, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that deviseth wicked imaginations, feet that are swift to run to mischief, a false witness that speaketh lies, and he that soweth discord among brethren”. A black catalogue that I most of them sins that all men will condemn, and of which most men would be ashamed. But at the very head of the list stands the “proud look”; and as there cannot be a proud look unless there is a proud heart behind it, it is the hidden pride of heart that here is stamped with the foremost reprobation of God. [Note: G. H. Knight, In the Secret of His Presence, 62.]
2. We are much inclined to self-dependence. We would do God’s work without God’s help. In our church capacity we have sometimes, as we think, knowledge and wisdom, and skill, and plans, and organizations, and numbers, and pecuniary resources, and we are tempted to trust to these; and in our more private and personal capacity we are ready so to think of what we can do, and of what we will do, as to overlook what God must do. We go to God’s own work as if it were altogether man’s work. We engage in it in a spirit of self-dependence. But when we do Christian work, we are not only dependent upon God; it is indispensable also that we should exercise that dependence, that we should express it in prayer. This is as much a condition of His co-operation with us as is the use of the power which He has committed to our hands. He gives of His Spirit to those that ask Him, and He gives of His Spirit in the measure that they ask for that Spirit. He who feels that he is quite equal to the Christian work to which he is called is left by God to his own resources. When we are strong then are we weak; when we are weak then are we strong, for then it is that by faith and prayer we unite ourselves to the strength of God. We are to use our own power in the Christian service, and then we are to put our trust in God’s power; we are to do what we can, and when we have done what we can, we are to look and see what God will be pleased to do.
James and John once came to Jesus and made to Him the amazing request that He would place one of them on His right hand and the other on His left hand when He set up His imperial government at Jerusalem! As long as these self-seeking disciples sought only their own glory, Christ could not give the askings of their ambitious hearts. By-and-by, when their hearts had been renewed by the Holy Spirit, and they had become so consecrated to Christ that they were in complete harmony with Him, they were not afraid to pour out their deepest desires. James declares that, if we do not “ask amiss,” God will “give liberally”. John declares that “whatsoever we ask, we receive of him, because we keep his commandments, and do those things that are pleasing in his sight”. Just as soon as those two Christians found their supreme happiness in Christ and His cause they received the desires of their hearts. [Note: T. L. Cuyler, Twenty-Two Talks, 60.]
3. For true balance of character and to produce the best work in any line, it is necessary for a man to have both humility and also self-confidence. There is a false humility which weakens a man and unfits him for the duties of life. It is often indistinguishable from moral cowardice, a refusal to put forth the best powers, a slackness of moral tissue which may be as fatal a form of self-indulgence as any other form of it.
As there is a false humility which spoils character and work, so there is an over-weening conceit which is equally weak, and which keeps a man from his true place of usefulness. An exaggerated sense of personal importance, an inordinate ambition for the first place, an egotism which judges of everything according as it affects that sweet gentleman self, a self-pushing, self-advertising spirit which will not enter into anything unless self is to be the first dog in the hunt—that is the other extreme.
There are many cheap and exaggerated reputations in the world; but I am not sure but that the reputation for humility may not be the cheapest of them all in some cases. To get it, you only need to lie low, and say nothing, and never take an independent stand. No useful work is possible from the man who is so mistrustful of himself that he will not even try. [Note: Hugh Black, University Sermons, 70.]
