I once had to go toe-to-toe with a difficult student who towered over me. He was one of those “fully grown since middle school” football players who basically held the entire line of defense by himself. We’re talking a good 10 inches, and maybe a couple hundred pounds, bigger than me. He came from a family known for short tempers, plenty of jail time, and a momma mean enough to keep the stories spinning. 

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He came swaggering in one day – late as usual – and demanded another kid get out of the seat he wanted. Everyone turned to look at me. The tension in the room let me know it was that moment. The one where my next step mattered. 

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I calmly told him he could find an open seat, as that seat was taken. His pride kicked in, and he started to shout, demanding the seat be given to him. I countered with, “Well, I guess if the seat is so important, you should come early next time so it’ll still be available.” 

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He lost it. He raged-stomped over to me, and started screaming down into my face. I don’t know what all was said because the entire time he was screaming, all I could see was a scared little boy in a home where blackout rages and drunken violence were the norm, and it broke my heart. Rational fear of his anger was overruled by compassion as understanding filled the cracks of my awareness. I knew his mom was probably gone again. She was known for disappearing only to come back in a firestorm of chaos later.

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So, at the end of his tirade, I said the only thing I could think of: “I’m your teacher, not your mom.” I went on to calmly remind him that I show up, treat him well, and care about each student. That meant I couldn’t force the other person out of the seat because it wouldn’t be the right thing to do. 

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Unexpectedly, he apologized and sat down. That was the end of it. His pride rushed out as quickly as it had come in, and was replaced with a humility not often seen in him. 

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I ended up with a giant of a kid as a shadow that year. It was 2020, and life was hard for everyone, but I learned something from him in those months before the shutdown – humility and compassion are always more effective than saving face. It would’ve been so easy to throw him out of class and write up a report for disrespect, but that wouldn’t have touched the heart of the problem. 

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C.S. Lewis wrote, “According to Christian teachers, the essential vice, the utmost evil, is Pride…it was through Pride that the devil became the devil. Pride leads to every other vice: it is the complete anti-God state of mind” (Mere Christianity, 109). 

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Pride tells us we do or don’t deserve something. Humility asks us to lay aside those things for the sake of considering something or someone outside of ourselves, and I believe it’s often sparked by compassion.

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Jesus did this so beautifully in coming to Earth. Philippians 2:7 tells us He gave up His divine privileges to come live as a human and die a criminal’s death. It would’ve been so easy to refuse. He didn’t deserve to live among sinners or to endure the hardships of daily life, and He definitely didn’t deserve to have the sins of the world placed upon His shoulders.  

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But He chose the way of humility. He chose to come down to Earth to give us what we don’t deserve – life everlasting. 

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He changed the trajectory of the world by taking the world’s sin on His shoulders. In contrast, the devil still seduces us to follow in his footsteps of pride leading to destruction. 1 Peter 5:8 says that he “prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.” One destroys, while the other rebuilds. 

I don’t know about you, but I want to be known as someone who rebuilds, not as someone who destroys. If we’re to become rebuilding people, we have to learn humility, and that doesn’t come easily. It takes time and practice. 

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As a teacher, it took time studying and practicing to begin effectively implementing strategies and responses in my classroom that made a difference. I had to learn to connect with compassion in order to correct with humility. That doesn’t come naturally.  

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The same is true for learning to relate to others as Christ relates to us. Maybe you could take time this weekend to look through the Gospels and find how often the Bible says Jesus was “moved by compassion” for those around Him. Where could you implement compassion and humility into a difficult interaction this week?  

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We can only become people who relate to others with Jesus-fueled humility when we learn how He would respond and practice doing it His way.