Courage and Humility for 2018

The day after making the ruling to nullify the Presidential election in Kenya in 2017, Supreme Court Judge and Chief Justice David Maraga was back at his church. Many did not agree with the ruling he and his fellow judges made, he was called all sorts of names, there was great tension in this country and there was already anxiety about the next phase of election campaigning.  Maraga had just sent a courageous and exciting message not just to Kenya but to the whole of Africa. For one short moment democracy trumped ethnicity, the voice of justice was stronger than the voice of politics and systems. He delivered a powerful verdict. Then, the next thing I see he was on my tv screen, humbly sitting in the middle of the church with his wife and surrounded by other members of the congregation, people who clearly knew him well.

 

I don’t know much about Maraga, I don’t know much about the in and outs of Kenyan politics and certainly don’t endorse any particular political views. In fact, one of the problems I find with Kenya politics is that is less on policy, more on personality, oversaturated in personal agendas and it sometimes looks to me that it is difficult to hold an ideological political viewpoint in Kenya. However, Maraga’s actions made me sit up. In my eyes, in just a couple of short days he had shown courage and humility. At the same time!

Courage and humility don’t seem like easy bed mates but I saw them in action together that weekend. Uniting courage and humility seems a challenge, the balancing act between the two seems difficult to me as they present as somewhat paradoxical and incompatible. In my perceptions, they are generally either / or practices rather than collaborative approaches to life, leadership and service. Courage for me seems to rely on my own strength and perhaps even ego while humility seemed to imply setting these aside. I have reflected greatly on this but the main question persists; how can I show courage and humility together?

For me and in the context in which I service, I look at courage required to tackle the injustices (the external issues) that I see all around, to bring my faith to conversation. Humility is having the necessary reflective skills to understand my own limitations, appreciates the strength of others, listen, empower and promote others and to make sure others be the heroes (the internal issues). 

So in 2018, I am eager to discover how best God can use me and what has given me to bring a humble and courageous witness of faith and justice into a hurting world. In other word, ‘walk humbly, love mercy, act justly’ (Micah 6:8). I want to reflect on this, I want to act on this and I want to live this out! Here goes…