Q&A Part 1

What steps have you taken to fight pride and pursue humility?

The truth is, the more I try on my own strength to fight pride the more I fall into the pit of pride. There is surely nothing I can do but asking God to work in me. That would be the first step. Other step is to continually study the Word of God. The Word of God helps in revealing my sins, including selfishness and pride, and it takes me to daily conviction to repentance and ask the Lord to transform my selfish heart and proudful mind. I also realize the important of having people to keep me accountable. The closest person would be my husband and church family second. I need to be reminded and to be corrected again and again. Having people to keep me accountable definitely helps.

Other thing I want to include here is letting other people misunderstand/ misrepresent me. I have lived and moved from one country to another. Being the new girl in the city always come with the desire to explain myself—who am I, what I have done, and why I do what I do, so, that people won’t belittle me. I think this is where my pride screams the loudest and I am still learning on this.

As a church leader how do you help others with rooting out pride; while not sounding proud?

It is obvious that I am not a church leader, however, I do struggle with this issue. We surely must do it in love. Although, it is true that even if we corrected others in love, people would probably misunderstand us. I believe being misunderstood is part of the process to grow in humility.

Learning from Paul in 2 Corinthians 12:19, Paul first acknowledges his insufficient and reminds the Corinthians that– “we do not preach ourselves but Christ Jesus the Lord...” (2 Corinthians 4:5). It is interesting that Paul viewed himself as a vessel that holds a precious incense (the Gospel), points out that it is not him that has the power, but God himself.

So, I think the first think we should do is to assess ourselves if we acknowledge our insufficiency and that God holds all the power. Second, we must point them to Christ and the Gospel. Rooting out pride surely won’t be a one of thing, but it is a lifetime process, and all of us must deal with it. Thus, godly life example, discipleship, and friendship is necessary. No one is perfect, but in Christ we are being perfected in our faith, and it is our responsibility to help each other to grow. as long as we place ourselves under the authority of Scripture, open to correction, and doing it out of love.

Would you be willing to show honor to someone that has caused you to hurt or dishonor if they have poured into you? If you can, how would you?

Great question. I ask myself this question again and again. Christ is our greatest example on this. My desire and my prayer are to be Christlike; this includes how I would deal with difficult people and situations. I surely am willing to show honor to those who have hurt me, however it is very difficult. Especially when you have tried to address the issue and take initiative to reconcile with the person, yet that person continues to hurt you, nonetheless. And in some cases, perhaps they do not want to have any contact with us any longer, which make loving and honoring them difficult. In that case, I believe that my responsibility is to deal with my own heart, to forgive, to let go the person, and I would remind myself that at the end everyone of us will stand before God to give an account.

How do you honor leaders without placing them on a pedestal?

It certainly requires humility to be able to see others as more knowledgeable and gifted than us. I remember Irving Berlin’s Broadway song Anything You Can Do (I Can Do Better) when 2 singers are attempting to outdo each other in doing a long list of various tasks. Perhaps, it pictures our tendency to think that we are always doing things better than others, rather than admitting that perhaps other people have more knowledge or are more skilled than us in certain things. We are all wired differently, and it should be a good thing for the ministry. I could not imagine if everyone in the Church was only gifted in music, who will teach and preach, who would do all the creative teaching with the kids, who would deal with the church’s admin works?

To answer your question, I think we must understand that everyone, including leaders, is in the process to be shaped by God. Leaders are not fault-resistance, thus, there might be a time when they need to be corrected. And I believe that giving correction when it is needed does not mean we are dishonoring our leaders. In fact, that is an act of honor that would bring what best out of their characters and their ministry that would influence the people they lead. However, we must remember that the foundation of it all should be to honor God and not for personal gain.

*Q&A from a Doctoral Ministry class

Questions from classmates