Is Humility the Path to Communion?

by Tina Coffey

In the last couple of weeks I’ve had opportunities to view the world through other people’s eyes on a couple of occasions.  The first came when a friend of mine that I have come to know through our children really opened up to me about some personal struggles she was having.  We’ve been friends for several years because of our children’s relationship, but this was different.  She shared with me on a deeper level and really showed me a vulnerable side that you don’t ordinarily see with casual friendships.  My eyes were really opened to a more full view of who she was. I was grateful that she trusted me enough to be so real with me and I think this experience touched me so much because this is a person that I have always admired and viewed as “having it all together.”  The experience brought us into a closer friendship.

The second experience came when I was looking through my teenage son’s phone to see what he had been up to.  One of the rules that my husband and I established with my son when we got the phone for him was that we had access to it at all times.  As I was reading some of the conversations he had shared with his friends, I became more aware of some of the relationships he has in his life with his peers.  Again, I saw more of who he was.  This gave me a view into his world that I don’t see on a regular basis.  While I didn’t find anything earth-shattering, there were definitely conversations that warranted some advice from Mom.  The resulting talk was initially uncomfortable for him, but allowed our relationship to grow as he saw a side of Mom that was understanding of what he is experiencing.  

These two experiences did something for me that was completely unexpected.  They reminded me how self-involved I am, which in a way is a natural thing.  After all seeing the world through our own eyes is usually the only view we have. I think we tend to be really wrapped up into our own lives, opinions, worries, etc...  Being allowed “in” to someone else’s world in a very intimate way was a wake up call for me.   

Having a window into the lives of these two individuals reminded me of something I already knew but tend to forget sometimes.  We human beings are broken.  From the moment Adam and Eve chose to separate themselves from God, they in turn, separated all of humanity from Him and the result is this brokenness that we experience.  I’m very familiar with my own brokenness.  For the most part, I’m aware of my faults and the sins that I struggle with.  While it is true that we can be aware of the sins and struggles of others, we don’t always have access to why others struggle.  We don’t typically have a window into their hearts or minds.  This is why judgement is reserved for God alone as God is the only one who really knows each of us.  He knows us better than we know ourselves.  While I feel like I understand my own struggles, there are definitely things I still discover about myself.  Being on a path of self-discovery is part of the path to discovering God.  We should always be working toward conforming our will with His and this process involves taking a good hard look at ourselves and working on letting go of our own selfish desires and being fully open to His desires for our lives.  

As I continue to learn about my faith and the riches it has to offer, I have come to discover the importance of and the depths of communion.  Communion with others and communion with God is what heaven is.  There can be no complete communion unless there is perfect love and of course God is the source of all love.  This brokenness prevents us from being in perfect communion with the source of all love and with each other.  Being aware of this is crucial in our spiritual battle because Satan wants us to remain broken and outside of communion.  That feeling of ‘being alone” often leads us to make bad choices for ourselves which is exactly what he wants.  He is the father of separation as he chose to be separated from God because of his pride.  

This leads me to my final point.  Pride is what drives us to put up false impressions of ourselves for each other.  Not being real with each other prevents real communion with family, friends, and our Father in heaven.  In order to fight pride and the sins that accompany it and in order to achieve communion, we have to embrace humility.  Humility is the tool that allows us to tear down the walls we put up between ourselves and others and ourselves and God.  Once we free ourselves from pride, we become free to encounter each other in a way that leads to real communion.  Humility is the path to communion and thus the path to heaven.  If you ever want to look at a picture of true humility, look no further than the cross.

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