One of the struggles that most people have to deal with is the struggle we have between pride and humility. Thus the oxymoron: “I’m humbled by and yet proud of my achievement.” or; “I am so proud of my humility.” On the one hand we are encouraged to be industrious, to maximize our talents and to be ever achieving and involved in good and worthwhile causes. On the other hand we are disparaged if we become proud and haughty because of our success in those things that we accomplish. A prideful, boastful demeanor is, in fact, an attitude that causes many to criticize the achiever, even though they may agree that the accomplishment was worthy of praise. Alexander Green tells the story of the time the greatest athlete in history was humbled by a youth. Jim Brown is arguably the best all-around athlete ever. He was a track star, one of the nation’s finest lacrosse players, averaged 38 points per game on his high school basketball team, and broke NFL records as a running back for the Cleveland Browns. In 2002, The Sporting News named him the greatest football player of all time. He was pretty handy with a tennis racquet, too. And he liked to wager on his matches. At a Las Vegas tennis club in 1979, Brown was frustrated when his opponent cancelled a money match at the last minute. A stranger approached him with a young boy. His proposal — delivered in a thick foreign accent — was preposterous. He bet Brown that his nine-year-old son — short and scrawny even for his age, could beat him in tennis. And he was cocky about it. He offered to put up his house. We can only imagine what ran through Brown’s mind as he sized up the half-pint. After all, this wasn’t a bet. It was an insult. The stranger had chosen the wrong man to outrage Brown. Brown wasn’t just an athletic phenomenon, his NFL career could be summed up in his oft-quoted remark, “Make sure when anyone tackles you he remembers how much it hurts.” He countered that they should make the bet an even $10,000. The club owner tried to warn Brown. And while he did reduce his wager, he wouldn’t be talked out of the match, insisting, “The man needs to be taught a lesson.” And so Jim Brown strode off to the courts. With Mike Agassi and his young son Andre, in tow. It didn’t take Brown long to recognize his error. He had been hustled. We seldom deliver lessons in humility. More often than not, we wind up on the receiving end.
We can’t help but experience excitement when we achieve something we have been working on for some time; but the fault and the danger is that we will come to think that we are better than others because of what we achieved. Christ taught that he who exalteth himself shall be abased and he who abaseth himself shall be exalted. In other words, we should be humble enough to assume that our place is not at the head of the table until we have been called up to take our place of honor by the master of the house, or the King of Kings. We are taught that to be humble is to be teachable and that pride causes us to envy and to resent the person who is in a position to be the teacher. Another important attribute of humility is gratitude. Gratitude, in this instance, is the recognition of all those persons and /or things that made it possible for us to achieve the thing we attempted. More importantly we should praise God for granting us life itself, as well as our health and our freedom to make it possible for us to achieve. Humility is an attribute that even Heavenly Father, most probably shares with us. Even though we know He is the most intelligent and the powerful being in the universe (Abr. 3:19), His power comes by way of honor given to Him by all other intelligences. (D & C 29:36) The reason we all honor Him is because He is Just, True, Merciful and Unchanging or Predictable. If He were to change then according to Mormon, He would cease to be God, (Mormon 9:19) probably because He would cease to be honored. Mormon goes on to say that, He will not cease to be God and that He is a God of miracles. Thus we can see that even God may recognize a need for humility, a universal attribute that is demonstrated by one’s gratitude. Let us take the talents we have been given and increase them so that the Lord will say to us one day, “Well done, thou good and faithful servant, thou hast been faithful… enter into the joy of thy Lord.” Matt 25:21 God bless us to be humble servants and grateful for all the people and things in our lives that help us and encourage us to use the talents we have been given. Too, may we always be grateful for the talents we were entrusted with to achieve those things that we have and will yet achieve.