We’re bombarded with advice to “Just Do It” because “You Can,” to “Be all you can be,” and, ultimately, just “Believe.” Believe in what? In ourselves, of course, and to have “confidence in confidence itself.” It seems to be decent advice. With all the uncertainty life brings, perhaps believing in ourselves will provide that extra bounce to get us over life’s many hurdles.

But these modern mantras of self-reliance often ring empty against the reality of our actual helplessness: our vulnerability as we confront disease, calamity, and crime; our inability to control our own emotions and bodies; our powerlessness to protect loved ones from the poison of our own sins as much as the sins of the world.

Ultimately, believing in myself means I have only my own meager self to tackle life’s challenges. To prop up this same meager self to the task of attempting the mission God has given every believer seems an even more bleak and lonely prospect. But for those who’ve trained themselves to believe in the self, there is no other option. Pride, it seems, just has to lead to despair.

However, to acknowledge my powerlessness, to admit that there really is, after all, not a lot of hidden potential or strength within me—to be humble, in other words—this opens up my life to receive help external to myself. When I refuse the call to look to myself first and last, I can look to others, if not for help, at least to just let them know that I feel weak, that I can’t do it on my own, that I need them. I can find camaraderie in my weakness. I can pray for God’s abiding presence. I can look up and begin to find hope for a power beyond my own. I can join the ranks of the foolish who shame the wise, and the weak who shame the strong. Not that shaming is the point. The point is that the humble often discover the joy of hope, of connection to God and to others, while the proud keep trying to believe in themselves, which becomes increasingly harder to do--the only grace of which may be that it can eventually lead to humility (a loop I’ve been on many a time).

Humility is not just a nice virtue; it’s really the only way to live.

1 Corinthians 1:27, “But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong.”