Growing up, my favorite possession was my bicycle. I had a three-speed banana seat which was yellow and black. I loved riding my bike with my friends. During the summer, we would ride all over the place. We would be gone all day long. One of the things we enjoyed most was building ramps. Bricks, boards, and plywood was all we needed. We would see who could jump the highest and farthest. We would jump over stuff and sometimes over each other. To add flare, we would try to do trick riding, with no hands, standing up, or slalom.
One time, I went a bit too far. I tried to jump the ramp while steering with my feet. I came down the hill as fast as I could, moved my feet up to the handlebars, hit the ramp, landed, and crashed. This was the days before helmets and knee pads. Thankfully. I didn’t hit my head, but I ended up with a strawberry scrape down my leg. Ah, but it was worth it. I made it over the ramp and impressed my friends.
Isn’t it amazing the things we will do in order to try to impress other people. Yet the Bible teaches us to “do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others” (Philippians 2:3-4). We all naturally look out for our own interests. We are called to take that same level of concern we have for ourselves and apply it also to the interests of others. This is true humility. Humility does not think less of oneself, humility thinks of oneself less.