Your humility best passes glory to God

See: Matthew 6.

Indeed there is much in the bible about not hiding ones light under a bushel. On the other hand there is an exhortation to keep ones works hidden, to “let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth.” How do you reconcile the two? The answer lies in humility.

When we are moved in our hearts for the good of others there is no doubt that we will not always be moved by God in doing so. Indeed, part of God’s approach to standing back from our lives could be seen as an effort to encourage a love in our hearts that moves according to divine will independently. But we won’t always be moved by that will, nor will the outcomes always pay tribute to God’s loving glory. Living in the imperfection of the human condition makes this inevitable. There will also be times when we partly hit the mark. Sometimes we will serve God’s love in part while falling down in the other. In particular this can refer to advice or any guidance offered from a faith perspective.

The best way to let God’s will shine through our choices is to shy away from trumpeting them ourselves as God’s will. God’s love shines all on its own and speaks through the changes it makes in others lives. Our faith in this impact should trust that these changes shine as such, without needing our commentary to underline and promote their presence. Our words are a poor, human made construct anyway, and the changes of the heart are a beauty beyond language. Having a glorious light shine for others to see spreads more light than describing to others how the light shines. Further, poorly chosen words can diminish the true nature of that shine in translation.

Humility keeps us from making the judgement call on which of our actions is God working through us and which is not, while still letting the light shine. Shying away from trumpeting action not only lets the light shine for itself, but acknowledges that the love that flows through us from God is not of us, and we could never quantify how far such a light shines and how many souls it warms. Human words should always pause before daring to define such an infinite divinity, for fear of limiting in description what is in reality so much more.