My Screwy View of Humility

The most poignant quote from C.S. Lewis' "The Screwtape Letters", in my mind, is the following. In it the elder demon, Screwtape, tells his pupil demon, Wormwood about humanity's ill view of humility:

I see only one thing to do at the moment. Your patient has become humble. Have you drawn his attention to the fact? All virtues are less formidable to us once the man is aware that he has them. But this is specially true of humility. You must, therefore, conceal from the patient, the true end of humility. Let him think of it, not as self-forgetfulness, but as a certain kind of opinion (namely, a low opinion) of his own talents and character. Some talents, I gather, he really has. Fix in his mind the idea that humility consists in trying to believe those talents to be less valuable than he believes them to be. No doubt, they are less valuable than he believes. But that is not the point. The great thing is to make him value an opinion for some quality other than truth. Thus, introducing an element of dishonesty and make-believe into the heart of what otherwise threatens to become a virtue. By this method, thousands of humans have been brought to think that humility means pretty women trying to believe that they are ugly, and clever men trying to believe they are fools. The Enemy wants to bring the man to a state of mind in which he could design the best cathedral in the world and know it to be the best, and rejoice in the fact without being any more (or less) or otherwise glad at having done it, than he would be if he if it had been done by another. The Enemy wants him, in the end, to be so free from any bias in his own favor that he can rejoice in his own talents as frankly and gratefully as in his neighbor’s talents.

For years, I thought this was humility: to deny I had any talent whatsoever, any skill, or any attractive quality or at least have a low opinion of what I knew I had. When people complimented me, I shuffled my feet and denied it. Okay, okay, to be totally honest, this is what I'm like today too. Just imagine the suffering and anguish I going through having the most verbally complimentive husband on the face of the planet! "Brittany, you're the most naturally beautiful woman in the world"-"No, I'm not, you're crazy!!!!!!!!!" "You're such a talented poet"-"No, be quiet, you're embarassing me!!!!!" I still don't know what to say or do when he says stuff like that. Oy. Probably the best/most biblical thing I could say would be "Thanks, if you appreciate anything about me, it's because of how the Lord has gifted me, and I take no credit." But sometimes it's just easier to shuffle my feet. Maybe I'm just too lazy to say that mouthful.

But anyway, I hope that quote encourages/convicts you. We all have gifts and talents and must be ready to give credit where credit is due. If we deny we have these things, then we are saying God has not gifted us, and that's a lie from the pit of hell! So instead, the best thing we can offer is thanks to God for what He's done in our feeble, mortal bodies for this is right and good.

I would love to hear what anyone has learned about humility or is currently learning. I'm going to get back to my leftover Vietnamese food- yum!