Invisibility Cloak

I've been meditating on the imperatives in the Bible to "be humble." Paul, in Colossians, says to "put on" humility, as if it were a cloak. Peter says, "Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another, for 'God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.'” (emphasis mine.)

In the much loved David Copperfield, the smarmy Uriah Heep says: "I am well aware that I am the umblest person going." As soon as you think you are humble, by virtue of your awareness, you are not. So, I am deducing that humility it is an action that we must employ, not a quality that we can claim to have.

It's not until the end of the saga that Harry Potter realizes the uniqueness of the invisibility cloak that Professor Dumbledore has given him. Throughout the story Harry employs the cloak to slip in and out of Hogwarts, to do mischief and to do good, but mostly he just takes it for granted. He draws it over himself and he becomes completely invisible to the eye and even to witchcraft, virtually undetectable. Invisibility is something which he puts on. In no wise, even as a wizard, is he able to become invisible any other way.

Where do I find a cloak of humility? If this is a characteristic that I am commanded to display but which I can't manufacture from within, then how do I go about putting it on? "God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble." So, is the Bible saying that if I chose to love someone in the way that is best for them then God will give me the grace to do it? This is tough. I like having the last word. There is something so monstrously satisfying in being justified in my own mind. But there is no peace in it. No, the only choice is to love and that can only be done well through the grace of humility, not in weakness but in strength.

I don't have to become invisible but I do have to get my motives and preconceptions out of the way. Choice is the action, grace is the means, humility is the result. After all, as Dumbledore says, it's not our abilities that make us who we are but the choices that we make.