He must increase; I must decrease.

I read Andrew Murray's book "Humility" today.

It was both inspiring and frustrating. Inspiring in its penetrating truth that true humility is "the displacement of self by the enthronement of God. Where God is all, self is nothing." And frustrating in its seeming incompatibility with my most recent conceptualization of humility--mainly revolving around issues of self-esteem.

Throw the word "self-esteem" to a group of Christians and there is no telling the reaction you will get. Some might not even notice. Some will offer it an affirming nod--perhaps even grabbing at it as a welcome answer to a recent depression experienced. Others shake their heads--in either disgust or sorrow (depending on their humility, I submit).

I, of course, concur with those who champion a God-centered stance versus a self-centered one. But I question whether or not a God-centered life necessitates a disposal of self-esteem. "Esteem" may have been a poor word choice, but that is another issue...

As a psychologist, I guess it is my burden to explain to those who care to open themselves to learning that self-esteem is not the simple self-view it appears. There are many types of self-esteem beyond "high" and "low." I don't claim to be an expert in this area and so won't try to give a thorough review or anything... But the main point I think I want to make is that "building" self-esteem is not always about feeding your pride. I guess I'll refer back to the fact that "esteem" may not be the best word choice. Self-"appreciation" might be better if people knew the distinction between esteem and appreciation.

I like the way the Oxford American Dictionary puts it by contrasting the terms "appreciate," "admire," and "esteem." They're all concerned with recognizing the worth of something, but to appreciate something, you must understand it well enough to judge it critically. If you admire, you appreciate its superiority, and esteem implies that your admiration is of the highest degree.

In this sense then, God-centered living would esteem God alone. But by conferring God His rightful superiority, must the self necessarily be regarded as worthless? Surely we should not self-admire, but when we are called to love our neighbor as we love ourselves does this not imply that we should value the self and other equally?

However, the actual frustration I am running into with Murray is not that he attacked self-esteem but rather his emphasis on the nothingness of self, the forgetting of self, the losing of self. I do think that humility is marked by a lack of self-focus, but in my thinking lately, a noncontingent, secure self-esteem seems necessary before one is free to forget about him or herself. Am I correct in believing that we must feel safe and valuable before we are free to forget ourselves? Jesus was secure in his sense of self, that he was eternally loved and valued by God; does His humility not pour out of this confidence? Is it not true that He was able to endure the shame of the cross because He trusted the goodness of His Father's will and design? Could Christ have ever feared losing His status in His Father's eyes? I don't think so for the Father and Son love perfectly and perfect love casts out fear.

I am also wrestling with the implications of a secular humility. I suppose it is not that different than the question posed by our atheist friend at C:ER a few weeks ago... Mainly, that we are saying human love is no love at all apart from a primary love of God. Is humility no humility at all apart from a submission that God is all and I am nothing? I think there must a be a level at which the human-without-God version of things is yet a form of the real thing--a distorted form, certainly, but not wholly separate from the original intention. What do you think?