How To Get Over Yourself

March 8, 2026

Pastor Patrick presented today's message, "How To Get Over Yourself." A video of today's message is here on YouTube. It may help to be familiar with the message but that is not required to enjoy the thoughts below.


Soul Refinement - Humility

In researching what I might say about today's topic, humility, I stumbled onto a unique perspective, "All of the good qualities Christians are to possess have an element of humility within them. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control [fruits of the spirit] - you can't have any of these things without humility." See What Does Proverbs Say About Humility and Pride?.

And if you're after a load of quotes about humility, try this: Humility Proverbs (not necessarily Biblical).

Here's an interesting article about humility from Chabad.org: Humility: Anavah (עֲנָוָה).

From the Franciscan Mission Association: "The word humility comes from the same root as humus, a Latin word which means 'soil' or 'ground.' This may seem a strange connection, but in humility, we are connected to the reality of the earth – we are 'grounded,' as it were. Much like a farmer knows the ground he cultivates, to be humble is to know oneself."

Bit of a sidebar/deep-dive... I thought I'd take a look at Watke's NICOT book on Proverbs. I was glad to find an index of subjects (along with other indeces) and "humility" in the list. There were only five entries, however; I thought there'd be more. Anyway, turns out the words translated as humble or humility can carry meanings beyond what I imagined. The one reference I chose to write about is the hendiadys "humble and oppressed" in Proverbs 3:34. A hendiadys is a figure of speech where two nouns are connected by "and" that would normally have a noun and an adjective. It's also known as "two for one" or "figure of twins." In this case, the phrase is "humble and oppressed." It means those who are in a circumstance of diminished capacity, power, and worth. The antonym is the wicked, violent, and oppressor - not the wealthy. The "humble and oppressed" are pious and ethical and simply economically distressed. The regular phrase would be "humbly oppressed" where the humble indicates the person can't or shouldn't "take credit" for the oppression.

Humility is one of those things you can't really brag about having.

Bonus

A European Christmas (movie)

While my viewing of Christmas movies has slowed down, it has not stopped. And it seems it's a little harder these days to come upon better ones. By chance, however, I did hit upon this little gem a few days ago: A European Christmas.

Many of the typical complaints can legitimately be leveled at this film (and its reviews are mediocre at best). What interested me, however, was the setting. The movie should have been titled "A Serbian Christmas." And that was a plus for me. It was filmed in Serbia and even included a few Serbians as actors. It's clearly a beautiful country and it was fun to learn about some of their customs.

At one point, a beautiful little bird is referred to as a robin. I thought to myself, "oops." Turns out, however, there is a beautiful little bird in Serbia called a European Robin (pictured here) that looks more like a finch to me. Other wildlife and beautiful wooded mountains pop up now and then during the course of the story (which takes place almost entirely in Serbia).

I also liked the candle globe Christmas ornament. Brought back memories of when Lynn and I put live candles (birthday candles) on a live tree for Christmas. You could only enjoy it for a few minutes, but it was so cool. The live-candle ornaments in the movie where more like globes that would better protect the tree from catching fire and allow a candle to burn longer.

I also got a kick out of the local character that made a habit of quoting lines from old familiar American movies, however forced or exaggerated.

There are also a few lessons in genuine gift giving. You know, where the gift is totally appropriate and very meaningful.

If Christmas movies set abroad interest you, here's the "Top 15 Christmas Movies set in Europe" by Blue Sky Traveler.

Bonus2

Proverbs with God's Wisdom

Here's yet another short, easy book on Proverbs that simply takes over 400 proverbs from the book of Proverbs and organizes them by over 30 topics, e.g.: 30 wise sayings, advice, friendship, drinking, enemy, self-control, happiness, humility and pride, honesty, advice to a king, gossip, etc.


Proverbs with God's Wisdom