Beautiful Humiliation

Normally I sit in a recliner to pray.  This morning I felt God prompting me to kneel.  So I did. 

This is what I sensed God saying: "This is where it starts. When you are on your knees, I lift you to the places I need you to go. When you start out confident and strong, you struggle to let me in to guide you."

Humiliation has a negative connotation and we fight it. But most transformations in nature come out of humiliation.  The seed must be buried in the ground to bring new life. The caterpillar must go into the cocoon to become a butterfly. The tree loses its leaves in the fall and becomes new and fresh in the spring.  There are echoes of scripture in all of these metaphors of humiliation.

There's a beautiful passage that is often called the humiliation of Christ. Allow these words to sink deep into your soul as you read them.

In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:

Who, being in very nature God,
    did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
rather, he made himself nothing
    by taking the very nature of a servant,
    being made in human likeness.
And being found in appearance as a man,
    he humbled himself
    by becoming obedient to death--
        even death on a cross!
Therefore God exalted him to the highest place
    and gave him the name that is above every name,
 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
    in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
 and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord,
    to the glory of God the Father. (Philippians 2:5-11, NIV)


Made nothing.  It's a great place to start.
-John M Troyer

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