Anavah-humility.

Have you ever been just out for a walk or maybe in nature somewhere and all of a sudden you were overcome with the awe and the wonder of all you were seeing around you. Walking through the forest, walking along the beach, watching children play on a playground. These breath taking moments can cause you to stand in awe and realize how small we are in the big scope of the world.

In the Hebrew language, the word we translate humility is the word anavah. It is a very interesting word to our English way of thinking. The literal definition is to occupy your God given space in the world. This has a meaning of don’t overestimate yourself and how important you are, but on the other hand, don’t underestimate yourself as though you have no significance at all.

Early in the Bible, there’s the story of the people who wanted to build a tower. They wanted to make a name for themselves. It would appear from that statement that they wanted to be famous. They wanted people to know who they were. They wanted to do something that everyone would admire and respect. When you look at it carefully, their desire was to do the exact opposite of what the word anavah-humility means in the original language. They wanted to take up more space than their God-given allotted-space in the world.

In today’s world so much of this generation is about liking our Facebook post. It’s about retweeting our friend’s post so they can get more views. Many times this creates a false sense of self-worth and how important we are. We are following in the footsteps of the tower of Babel, trying to take up more than our God-given space in the world.

It is my belief that when we try to take up more than our God-given space, it brings discontent in our life. This is not anavah, humility.

Some people are of the opinion that humility is thinking less of yourself. That idea translates into taking up as little space on this earth as possible. It would mean staying out of people’s thinking and off their radar. This is not a correct posture. This is not what God wants of us. God wants us to be aware of our place and to be comfortable in it. When we do this we balance our lives and live in peace and contentment.

There is a very beautiful balance in learning this principle of anavah. When we do this and only take up our space two things happen. 

Number one we do not squeeze anybody else out of their space and compete for their space. 

Number two we don’t reduce our space so that we don’t take care of our responsibilities and others have to help us with our lives because of inferior feelings, self hatred or weakness.

I encourage you keep in mind anavah. 

Make a choice today: I’m going to take up the space that God gave me to fill. I’m not going to intrude on someone else and try to take up their space. I’m not going to hide from the world and shrink out of everyone’s focus -and thus force someone else to do what I should be doing.

Anavah is understood as properly “occupying your God‑given space,”- neither inflating yourself nor denying genuine gifts.

It includes empathy and responsiveness to others’ needs, seeing one’s abilities as responsibilities entrusted by God rather than grounds for arrogance.

Anavah is modesty in your stance before God and other people.

Stand your ground-but only your ground. 

(Resources: 52 Hebrew words by Dave Adamson and Perplexity AI)