To be close to the earth. That is the title of this blogpost's definition. A few different English words come from this Latin word. One of those is humility. I've often found it hard to define humility. Over the last few years however, I've had numerous theologians try to define it by speaking about Philippians chapter 2. Here we find the passage which speaks about Christ "who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. 9"
Until I discovered the meaning of the Latin word humus recently, I still didn't fully understand what humility is all about, even after this awesome passage from Paul's writings. How can a person comprehend what it means to be close to the earth? They have to have nothing. All the earth has is the soil, plants, etc., around it. Christ came to earth empty. he lived his life in such a sense as well. He was a carpenter by trade for some of his growing up years; a living that would not end up providing him with too much of an income. There weren't too many possessions to hinder his growth as the person that he was. In a couple of weeks I'll be leading a mission trip with my youth group to an area of our city of Kansas CIty. I've been thinking about this idea of humus quite a bit today as I prepare some devotionals for our trip. The people we'll be with exemplify humus to an extent that most of the teens in our youth group have never comprehended, to no fault of their own. Even I, as a pastor's kid, missionary kid, missionary, and no youth pastor, have had relative riches compares to most of the homes of the kids we'll be ministering to have grown up with. Even where I was in Africa, whilst I had very little in American terms, I was a millionaire in Kenyan money. And now I must ask myself, how can I be close to the earth? How can I lower myself from the things tying me 'up' if you will?
The great part about humus is that we aren't alone. We may have little to tie us down, but we have the community around us, the soil, to help us grow and find strength. Jesus had his disciples with him, they provided companionship to him. We need those around us. At times they may be everything we have.
