What was your most humbling moment of 2025? I unfortunately have a number of moments to choose from, but even still, it’s not hard to make out the headliner.
The backdrop was one of the many high-profile incidents which captured the attention of this nation and many others. It monopolised the headlines, and magnified the extent of division in the church. Various online posts purported to speak conclusively as to what the different markers of my identity (Christian, Black, female, millennial etc) meant for where I should stand on the matter. And unsurprisingly, there wasn’t much commonality or coherence amongst these differing views.
The event was the assassination of Charlie Kirk, but my focus is less on what it entailed and more on what it revealed.
The first revelation was my limitation. The fact of my being limited wasn’t news, but it was still jarring to be confronted with it. The simple equation: More information = more understanding, proved to be untrue, and my usual methods for seeking clarity by researching more were coming up short. I didn’t need more of what I could get for myself; I had stumbled on my need for that which can only be given, and so I made my way before the Lord.
Note, I don’t say I spoke to the Lord. I had already been speaking with Him, or at least speaking to Him, musing as to how short-sighted some of His children are and how evidently flawed their reasonings can be. When I spoke to Him, I was set in the belief that He would confirm all I was already thinking. When I went before Him, I had accepted the revelation that it was I who needed to move towards His way of thinking.
To my embarrassment, I felt like it had been some time since I’d prayed like this, if in fact I had ever prayed like this before. I have enough familiarity with the scriptures to know foundational guidelines for disagreeing well in the body, but deploying a veneer of humility is much easier than embracing its posture.
I don’t think one needs particular prophetic chops to foresee the continued emergence of similar pressure points for us as a UK church in 2026. As I’ve considered this, I’ve felt the Lord call us afresh to humility and simplicity and a well-known passage comes to mind:
“At that time, Jesus prayed this prayer: “O Father, Lord of Heaven and earth, thank you for hiding these things from those who think themselves wise and clever, and for revealing them to the childlike. Yes, Father, it pleased you to do it this way!” My Father has entrusted everything to me. No one truly knows the Son except the Father, and no one truly knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.
Then Jesus said, “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy to bear, and the burden I give you is light.” Matthew 11:25 – 30 NLT
It is easy to seek the relief promised in this passage while bypassing the realisation which precedes it: we must first become disillusioned with our own wisdom in order to be liberated by the Lord’s.
These beautiful words come at the conclusion of what has been a contention-filled chapter of Matthew’s gospel. Jesus is first met by His cousin’s disillusionment with Him, as John the Baptist enlists the help of his followers to make sense of the seeming ineptitude of the anointed one, and Jesus laments the ignorance of the people of Korazin, Bethsaida and Capernaum as they embrace His signs but reject His person.
Indeed, familiarity with Jesus isn’t quite the same thing as following him. While I like the sound of an easy yoke, I can be less keen on the daily walk it requires.
To genuinely accept that while Jesus is always with me, following Him implies that I also need to move.
I’m learning that yesterday’s good discernment can in fact dull my sensitivity to just how much I need the Lord’s revelation for today. While I believe God does indeed use prior seasons to prepare us, I think this is more in giving us opportunities to practice the postures of dependence than it is in strengthening us so that we no longer need them. Put plainly, if the net effect of all the sermons you and I have ever heard (or given), Bible studies we’ve ever participated in, is to make us more resistant to the invitation of the Spirit right now, then maybe we’ve missed the point.
People of God, as we spy the contents of the year before us, I strongly believe that there is no point in hankering after simpler, less complex times. What the Lord is after is simpler, more humble people.
So my prayer is simple: May this be a year of learning to doubt our wisdom so that we fully can trust the Lord’s. May our shoulders be shorn of their heavy burdens, that we might take on the burden that is light.
