Emphasis Preaching Journal

Americans are not inclined to practice humility. We are reminded of the American proverb "If you don't toot your own horn, no one else will." Employment counselors tell us you might need this attitude in the job search. But Paul tells us it is not a healthy outlook for our spiritual lives. Seventeenth-century French intellectual Blaise Pascal offers a penetrating observation: "Jesus is a God whom we can approach without pride and before whom we can humble ourselves without despair" (Pensees, p. 212).