Is Humility also Hubris?

 

I am headstrong. I had asked my wife once whether I was arrogant or not. "Sometimes," was my wife's response. This was deeply upsetting to my soul. I worship a God who who has every right to boast, but he humbled himself in the person of Jesus Christ and died a death reserved for the marginalized. I am to put on Christ in my faith walk and die to my sins daily, which are largely rooted in pride. Still, I am often assured of things in my life and act as an apologist for my brand of faith, politics, and general social outlook. Often, my intentions are for clarity and exposition only, but I have discovered that I can be read as aggrandizing and haughty. 

One reason I recently left Facebook was because people I argued with over politics and faith often lobbed attacks at my intelligence. While I found their claims to be incredulous and chocked full of anti-intellectualism, I still didn't want to be perceived as snobbish and egotistic. At the heart of the matter, I really just wanted to be considered and listened to for what I have studied and found to have substance within an argument. I am certain my education level has changed my vocabulary enough that even when I think I am simplifying, I seem arrogant and showy. While this was not my intention, I also took it as a badge of honor when thrown back on me, because it proved to me that I have studied and probably knew what I was talking about. Still, I was bothered that I lost people or rubbed people the wrong way. 

I am now free of the toxicity of these arguments. I am now free of portraying an unintentional superiority. Nonetheless, I dislike that I could be seen as arrogant. I thought I had controlled my tone enough that I was actually being considerate. Now that I am not in these debates, I have made it my mission to strive for holiness and humility -- to die to myself and my sin daily. But I have encountered a paradoxical anomaly.

In striving to become humble, and should I arrive at and know that I am humble, would knowing this and being satisfied in it betray me and show that I am in fact still quite prideful? Can humility become hubris? I pray that in eternity, the pursuit of godliness would be wholesome and lack arrogance. Yet, in my present striving, I suppose I should never be satisfied, because the green monster of pride and selfishness is always around the corner. Maybe the goal is Christ-likeness, but in my fallen state and in a broken world, what's proper is actually not arriving. Maybe not arriving is warranted as a check and balance to arriving wrongly. But as I struggle onward, without arriving, how shall I know that I am doing it well enough, and if I know that I am doing well to walk softly and in repentance, does this also show my lack of arriving and the remaining taint of pride? 

The thoughts are circular. 

In the end, I suppose I must simply say as St. Paul did, "Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost" (1 Timothy 1:15). Lord have mercy!