Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, because human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires. Therefore, get rid of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent and humbly accept the word planted in you, which can save you.
Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.
-- James 1:19-21, 27
It is hard for me not to perceive that the lynchpin, of the inward and outward orientations, in the text above is humility.
So little of our world seems to run on such a thing—in fact, it seems to run on the opposite, especially where economics are involved, as the concern of the text also exposes.
Unfortunately, I don't see that much more humility in the church these days; a place where, at least theoretically, it should be most prominent. Its defiant self-righteousness is, among other things, appalling—described above as pollution.
Which begs the question; where is it in me? Because if I don't ask that question, I am no different.
