A good humbling

It was bugging me like a pebble in the shoe, and I finally told my husband and asked for prayer. Here is the ignominious little backstory:

I found myself on a weekly question-writing committee for our church’s Women’s Bible Study. There were four of us, and we met at one woman’s home. I noticed early on that my input was often dismissed out of hand. We would kick around this proposed question and that proposed question, and when a final decision was made, my suggestion was more often than not overridden. At one point someone even said, “I wish so-and-so were on this team because she knows how to write.”

Some of you are saying, “So what?”

Let me help you. Think about some area where you consider yourself better than average—cooking, plumbing, expert on the subject of orchids. You stink in most other areas, which you have no problem admitting, but on this topic you are used to people saying how good you are.

Now imagine yourself in a milieu where you suddenly discover you are not “all that and a bag of chips.”

In the day when Prince Absalom mutinied against his father David, the king had a counselor named Ahithophel. Just think how respected this man was. Here is what the Bible says of him:

“Now the advice of Ahithophel, which he gave in those days, was as if one had inquired at the oracle of God. So was all the advice of Ahithophel both with David and with Absalom” (2 Samuel 16:23).

When David in flight learned that Ahithophel had gone over to Absalom’s side, he sent his friend Hushai the Archite back to Jerusalem to infiltrate the inner circle and frustrate the counsel of Ahithophel. The gambit worked (see 2 Samuel 17). In a secret room with Absalom’s closest advisers, Ahithophel laid out what Absalom’s next move should be. (It was actually smart advice, too.) But Hushai then passionately argued a contrary strategy, and Absalom took his counsel.

Ahithophel slunk out of the room, perhaps unnoticed, surely reeling, with these words of Absalom ringing in his ears: “The advice of Hushai the Archite is better than the advice of Ahithophel” (2 Samuel 17:14). The narrative offers this postscript:

“Now when Ahithophel saw that his advice was not followed, he saddled a donkey, and arose and went home to his house, to his city … and hanged himself, and died” (v. 23).

You cooks, plumbers, and orchid experts out there are incredulous that a guy would off himself for something that small. But here’s the thing: Ahithophel’s whole identity was as the smartest guy in the room. That’s it. He wasn’t a military man, or marksman, or horse trainer, or brick layer. He had one thing going for him to make him great, and to feel proud of himself, and it was his good advice. Now he didn’t have that anymore. Ergo, he was nothing.

Beware (I am telling myself) of where your identity is. If it is in reputation or identity other than saved-sinner-and-child-of-God it will sooner or later backfire. We have all heard of the Harvard freshman syndrome: The kid was the blue-eyed boy valedictorian at Podunk High School, but now is surrounded by more accomplished scholars.

I actually enjoy a good humbling now and then. Not in the moment, of course, but not long afterward. It clears my head. It recenters me. Welcome back, reality! And God is happy to supply these moments: “No chastening seems to be joyful for the present, but painful; nevertheless, afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it” (Hebrews 12:11).

Finding himself excluded by the super-apostles and even some in the church, Paul remarks: “But with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged by you or by a human court” (1 Corinthians 4:3). When you are confident of God’s love, the opinion of others can sting but not destroy. It is “a very little thing.”

Oh the countless practical advantages of being a Christian! The surpassing greatness of the wisdom and knowledge of God breaks down all pride. We can laugh at the impostors we have been. Even Job got too big for his britches at one point, and God had to review for him the facts of the universe: “Who is this who darkens counsel by words without knowledge? Now prepare yourself like a man; I will question you, and you shall answer Me. Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Tell Me, if you have understanding” (Job 38:2-4).

“Just as I am, without one plea, but that thy blood was shed for me.”