Several years ago someone gave me a book on humility.  I love a gift book, but does it have to be that personal!  But as it turned out, the gift book was truly that.  And it has become a gift that has continued to give.  It’s Andrew Murray’s little classic, Humility.  I’ve brooded my way through it three times now, and I’m certain it will bless your own soul as it has mine. Murray, the great South African divine, makes a point that has stuck and rubbed in my mind like a burr under the saddle.  Reflecting on Jesus’ admonition—“He who humbles himself will be exalted” (Luke 14:11, 18:14)—Murray gives this prescient bit of counsel:  “What the command does mean is this—take every opportunity of humbling yourself before God and man.  Humble yourself and stand persistently, not withstanding all failure and falling, under this unchanging command.”  What’s he driving at?  “Accept with gratitude everything that God allows from within or without, from friend or enemy, in nature or in grace, to remind you of your need of humbling, and to help you to it.  Believe humility to indeed be the mother virtue, your very first duty before God, and the one perpetual safeguard of the soul.  Set your heart upon it as the source of all blessing.”   Did you catch that?  Embrace whatever humbles you!   “See that you do the one thing God asks: humble yourself.  God will see that He does the one thing He has promised.   He will give more grace; He will exalt you in due time.”  (p 90) Embrace that which humbles you. Embarrassment, pain, betrayal, failure—the list is legion of those difficult human realities that on occasion humble us in the eyes of others, but nearly always humble us in the eyes of our own souls.  Embrace that which humbles you.  Why?  Because could it be that in such an embrace we will at last have within our reach the very virtue of God that outshines all others—and without which we shall not see him? “Not I but Christ—Tales of Humility” is a new biographical series (perhaps autobiographical for us all) you can download from this site.  Six life stories that tell the story of our lives.  I invite you to relive them all with me . . . that we might learn to embrace that which humbles us . . . and thus embrace the One who saves us.