June 7 - Humility

1 Kings 3:4-4:34

Acts 6:1-15

Psalm 126:1-6

Proverbs 16:26-27

Today's Old Testament reading depicts a lesson Solomon seemed to get, intuitively, that I certainly didn't in my youth, that I continue to struggle with today, and that I pray desperately my children learn: humility.  And I don't mean the humility of someone demeaning themselves, putting themselves down, no.  I mean the definition of humility as I learned studying under - God bless them - the Jesuits, for sixteen years - humility as the recognition of truth.  

Solomon was king, big cheese, grand kahuna, top dog.  There was no one, other than God, with authority greater than his, in all of Israel.  His word was law.  And yet, when God came to him and offered him anything he wanted, he recognized the truth of his inadequacy, the truth of his unpreparedness, his lack of qualification for the life God had chosen for him.  He recognized the truth, admitted it and, consequently, was able to seek God's guidance and wisdom.  And God answered his prayer, and blessed him abundantly besides.

I struggled with this type of humility growing up - I always felt I had to already have the answers.  Which is why marriage, parenthood and working with the stock market have been such wonderful blessings.  I've been a stockbroker for 18 years, and I've yet to demonstrate any consistency in predicting which way the market was going to go, and for what reason.  Any lessons I might've learned raising my older children are difficult to apply to the younger siblings because they are so very different.  And we all know men are from Mars, and women are from Venus.  So despite how much I've resisted the idea, I've gradually come to realize I do not have the answers, but I am able to come to Him who has them, and who is happy to share them freely as He sees fit, out of His love for me.  I don't have to have the answers - I merely have to humble myself and recognize that truth, and - as He did with Solomon - God is then able to guide me.

And this is what I pray for my kids - that they grow humble enough quickly, to recognize the truth while they are still young, that they might then turn to our Lord and ask Him, as Solomon did, for the guidance they will need in order to live the lives God has planned for them.  And I pray they learn this, as Solomon did, in their youth.