Humble Pie

“…for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and the one who humbles himself will be exalted.” Luke 18:14

The great statesman, Winston Churchill, once said, “In the course of my life, I have often had to eat my words, and I must confess that I have always found it a wholesome diet.” Not many people appreciate the diet of humble pie, and we often learn humility with the greatest difficulty. 

Something was very wrong in the Vienna General Hospital between 1840 and 1846. It was one of the largest teaching hospitals in the world but in the maternity wing, the mortality rate was staggeringly high. The mothers would get raging puerperal fever, painful abscesses in the uterus and birth canal and die within three days of giving birth. After studying the problem, two doctors, Dr. Ignaz Semmelweis, and Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, proposed that the doctors who did autopsies should wash their hands before going to the maternity ward to deliver babies. The doctors scoffed in disbelief! Some even erroneously maintained that the dirtier the doctor, the better, because then they were very well trained as they regularly performed autopsies!

Dana Tulodziecki, a philosophy professor, wrote that the “doctors weren’t pleased that  Dr. Semmelweis, essentially implied that they were responsible for killing all those women.” That was probably the reason why it took a surprisingly long time before doctors realized how very important hand washing and sterilizing their instruments were. 

Yes, it is most humiliating when we realize the problem is us. When will we be sensible enough to know that humility is the root of all virtues and the surest sign of strength and wisdom? Let us allow God during this season of “spring cleaning” to show us how when we put ourselves in the center of everything, we interfere in His perfect plan for us. 

“Have mercy on me, O God, in your goodness; in the greatness of your compassion wipe out my offense. Thoroughly wash me from my guilt and of my sin cleanse me.”