The Blessing of Humility by Jerry Bridges

In the South there is a saying about being taken to the woodshed.  The woodshed is where you go to get a whipping and sort out your issues. I've been spending so much time in the woodshed spiritually speaking that I could take up residence. In the truest sense, I have been sorting out some deep hurts and some desperate hopes with Jesus. As I followed this book through the Beatitudes, I was more and more desperate to be like Jesus.

Humility is my buzzword. Every time I hear it, it is like an auditory prayer. Simply the word coming in changes into a cry of my heart. Pride is an easy thing for us to muster. Especially for those of us who have been abandoned and wounded. We all want to cover our scars with anything that will conceal our hurts. It is an easy trap. Of course we want others to think well of us. We want them to think we are smart, educated, beautiful, and possessing a perfectly timed wit. Pride doesn't heal others though. It doesn't even look at them. That's why we need to learn to look at the beauty and glory of who Christ is in order to be of any good to another soul.

I cried through certain sections on meekness and peacemaking. "Lord, let me be like you," I prayed. How can we never leave the beloved lost in sin, always speaking into it? How do you speak out against sin and never speak evil of anyone like it says in Titus 3:2? How do we live out Ephesians 4:29?

"Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear."

I don't know the answer, but I'm looking.

Read this book. Let Jesus rend your heart and teach you to love others far beyond your own selfish capacity to do so. Looking at Him turns off the switch in our brains that makes everything about us. Five Stars. Loved it. It tore me up. 

Synopsis from the Publisher:

We all admire humility when we see it. But how do we practice it? How does humility―the foundational virtue of the normal Christian life―become a normal part of our everyday lives?

Jerry Bridges sees in the Beatitudes a series of blessings from Jesus, a pattern for humility in action. Starting with poverty in spirit―an acknowledgment that in and of ourselves we are incapable of living holy lives pleasing to God―and proceeding through our mourning over personal sin, our hunger and thirst for righteousness, our experience of persecutions large and small, and more, we discover that humility is itself a blessing: At every turn, God is present to us, giving grace to the humble and lifting us up to blessing.

This book was graciously provided by NavPress for review.