The Humble Hand That Holds the Nation: A Meditation from Akasia
My friends, let me tell you about a Saturday not long ago. The sun was generous over Kgabo Lodge in our own Akasia, and the air was thick with the sound of commerce and community at the “Friends of the Market” event. I watched artisans from our townships and suburbs, their hands telling stories in wire, bead, and clay. I saw the vibrant, defiant hope of Homecoming Africa festival-goers planning their October pilgrimage to celebrate “Out of This World” sounds right here in Pretoria. Yet, moving through that crowd, I felt a profound tension—the very tension that grips our nation’s soul. We are a people beautifully stitching together a new identity on global stages like the G20, while the fabric of our dignity is threatened by the storms of poverty, the cruel rhetoric of xenophobia, and the silent epidemic of violence in our homes.
In this moment, a question pressed on my spirit, one I want to put to you: What is the foundational posture for a people seeking true healing? The world offers many answers: clenched fists of retribution, the raised chin of unassailable pride, or the folded arms of cynical withdrawal. But I am here, from my home in Pretoria, to propose a radical, biblical alternative. It is the Gateway of Humility.
Do not mistake this for weakness. In our context, where survival often demands a tough exterior, humility is frequently confused with defeat. Nothing could be further from the truth. Biblical humility is not thinking less of yourself; it is thinking of yourself accurately in light of God’s overwhelming reality. It is the courageous dismantling of the ego’s fortress so that the King of Glory may enter.
The Anatomy of a Bow: Defining Our Terms
Let us define our terms with philosophical precision, for confusion here is costly. Pride is the active verb of the soul that says, “I am the source.” It is the heavy ceiling that stops the rain of God’s favour, whispering that your strength, your intellect, your heritage is your ultimate spring. It is the foundational sin, for it seeks to dethrone God and install self.
Humility, then, is its antithesis. It is the active verb of the soul that says, “I am a receptor.” It is the bowed head that receives the pouring blessing. It is the conscious acknowledgement that you are a creature—beloved, imbued with divine image, but contingent, dependent, and derivative in every good thing. The Scripture declares unequivocally: “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble”. This is not a sentimental preference; it is a cosmic law, as fixed as gravity.
Argument from Contingency:
A common objection,especially in our achievement-driven age, is that this view is demeaning. However, this fails because it mistakes ontology for value. My argument can be formulated thus:
1. Everything that has a beginning has a cause.
2. My life, my talents, my very breath had a beginning.
3. Therefore, I have a Cause, an Ultimate Source.
Humility is simply the rational,joyous acknowledgement of this causal chain. It does not diminish my value; it correctly situates the source of my value in the One who conceived of me before time. To deny this is not self-esteem; it is a profound factual error about reality.
The Divine Paradigm: Christ, the Philosopher-King
If you want to see the perfect embodiment of this virtue, you need not look to ancient sages alone, though Jesus outshone them all. You look to the cross of Jesus Christ. Here is the most powerful philosophical argument for humility ever enacted.
The Apostle Paul lays it out with logical beauty: Jesus, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped. The Greek word here, harpagmos, implies something seized and clutched. Pride grasps. But Christ emptied Himself, taking the nature of a servant. He—the source of all water—became an empty calabash. He bowed low, lower than any giraffe can see, descending to the dust of death. Why? So that the stream of God’s redeeming grace could flow to us, and so that He could be exalted to the highest place.
This is the mind we are called to have. In Christ, humility is revealed not as a loss of power but as the very mechanism of divine power. His resurrection is the ultimate vindication that the way down is the only true way up. The empty one is lifted; the full one is passed over. Every divine assignment is given to the humble hand.
Confronting Our South African Pride: A Prophetic Alarm
Now, let us sound the alarm against the specific manifestations of pride that plague our beautiful, broken land. The Bible’s warnings are not abstract; they diagnose our national soul.
· The Pride of Victimhood and the Pride of Entitlement: We see a vicious cycle. On one side, political campaigns fuel the toxic pride of “us vs. them,” scapegoating foreign nationals for complex problems. This is the pride that builds identity on who we exclude. On the other, we see the tragic response in programs like the U.S. Afrikaner refugee scheme, built on a narrative of persecution that major Afrikaner groups themselves reject. This is the pride that seeks special status. Both are prisons. True liberation is found only in submitting to the biblical vision where there is “neither Jew nor Greek… for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28). Can we, who know the sting of exclusion, become the continent’s foremost champions of inclusion?
· The Pride of Power: Our nation is shuddering under an “alarming increase” in violence against women and children. What is this but the ultimate pride of power—the belief that one’s strength or rage grants the right to dominate and destroy another divine image-bearer? This is not just crime; it is blasphemous pride enacted on the bodies of the vulnerable. The humble heart, valuing others above itself, could never conceive of such evil.
· The Pride of Self-Sufficiency: We see it in the government’s piecemeal response to the climate crisis, leaving millions in informal settlements like Freedom Park to face floods alone. “We have no help from anyone,” one resident said. This echoes a deeper spiritual tragedy: the pride of a system that fails to acknowledge its limits and its divine mandate to protect the poor. It is the pride that builds on floodplains and wonders why it drowns.
The Gateway to Our Healing: A Call to Costly Discipleship
Therefore, reason itself, illuminated by Scripture and confirmed in our deepest longings for peace, compels us to acknowledge that humility is our only way forward. It is the Gateway.
Imagine, if you will, a humble nation. A nation that, like King Josiah, humbles itself upon hearing the truth, prays, and seeks God’s face. What would it look like?
· It would walk humbly with God, acknowledging in its policies and personal lives that the earth is the Lord’s. We would steward our land justly, not as masters, but as tenants.
· It would love mercy, dismantling xenophobia not just with laws but with a heartfelt conviction of our shared, dependent humanity. We would see the migrant, the poor, the woman in the shack not as problems, but as persons Christ died for.
· It would act justly, confronting corruption and violence not with the pride of mob vengeance, but with the humble, steadfast pursuit of God’s righteous order.
This is not a call to passive acceptance. This is a call to the most active, difficult, and glorious warfare imaginable: the war against the pride in your own heart. It starts when you bow low at the cross, the ultimate picture of strength-in-humility. It continues when you clothe yourself daily with humility, choosing to listen more than you speak, to serve in secret, to forgive the debt, to associate with the lowly.
The world says, “Stand tall, seize your rights, be your own god.” It leads to the destruction Nebuchadnezzar faced. Christ says, “Bow low, receive your life, and let Me be God.” It leads to exaltation.
So, my friend in Akasia, in Soweto, in Sandton, in the flood-prone settlement: your hope, and our nation’s hope, does not lie in a better politician, a stronger economy, or a prouder identity. It lies in the humble hand, open and empty, lifted to the God who fills the hungry with good things. Bow low in your heart. Let the heavy ceiling of pride collapse. And watch as the healing rain begins to fall.
For Further Reflection & Action:
· Scriptural Meditation: Read and pray through Philippians 2:3-11 daily for one week. Ask: “Where is my heart ‘grasping’ for status today?”
· Cultural Discernment: Critically analyze one news story this week. Identify the underlying “pride” (of tribe, power, victimhood, etc.) at work. Pray for God’s humble justice in that situation.
· Humble Action: Intentionally perform one act of secret service—helping someone who can never repay you and telling no one about it. This trains the heart in the humility of Christ.
Harold Mawela writes from Akasia, Pretoria, where he wrestles with applying the eternal truths of Scripture to the vibrant, complex reality of modern South Africa.
https://podcasts.apple.com/za/podcast/the-gateway-of-humility/id1506692775?i=1000741783643
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