Since March, God has pressed me again and again with two inextricably linked powerful words. In these last three months, He has driven them deeper into my soul.

When Bilbo, the Hobbit, slipped his hand into his pocket in a dark place he said, “What have I got in my pocket?”, and his hand closed around a ring of power. I also carry a symbol of power in my pocket – this little empty shell.

I found it washed up on the central Oregon coast, and, in the last couple months, I’ve been carrying it in my pocket. When I slip my hand into my pocket throughout the day, I’m reminded of two powerful words: humility and faith.

When the shell was emptied of its fleshy self, the sea rushed in to fill and overflow it. As long as it was filled with itself, it couldn’t be filled with the sea. Likewise, I can’t be full of the life of God if I’m full of myself. When I’m emptied of my fleshy self and yielded to Him in unreserved surrender, He rushes in to fill and overflow me with all of the fullness of His own life and power. Fully emptied. Fully filled.

Humility is emptying. It’s reverent submission to the One who redeemed me and it says, not I but Christ. Not my will, not my rights, not even my abilities but Christ and Him alone. Humility is my heart deeply convicted of its sinfulness, utter lack and complete dependence upon Christ to be all in all in me.

Faith is filling. It’s the thrilling inrush of the abundant fullness of the life of God and the exceeding greatness of His power. Faith knows and rejoices with absolute assurance that Christ lives in me. That He works every moment of every day to make me all that He has designed me to be, to equip me with every good thing to do His will and to keep me abiding in the realness of His presence. This is His joy and delight.

These two powerful words are true only in tandem. Faith without humility is self-centered and self-reliant. Humility without faith is self-deprecating and hopeless. The two together unleash the power and life of God to do immeasurably more that all I can ask or imagine. Humbly trusting with unreserved surrender and unflinching faith is utterly transforming, deepening the sweet union of my heart with the heart of God and renewing it afresh every day.

Humility and faith together say, I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. (Galatians 2:20)

Please take a moment to read Amy Carmichael’s poem, The Shell, which so beautifully and succinctly describes the life of humility and faith.