At that time the disciples
came to Jesus, saying, “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” And
calling to him a child, he put him in the midst of them and
said, “Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will
never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever humbles himself like this child is
the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.”—Matthew 18:1–4
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My career as a journalist
has afforded me opportunities to interview “stars,” including NFL football
greats, movie actors, music performers, best-selling authors, politicians, and
TV personalities. These are the people who dominate the media. We fawn over
them, poring over the minutiae of their lives: the clothes they wear, the food
they eat, the aerobic routines they follow, the people they love, the
toothpaste they use. Yet I must tell you that, in my limited experience, I have
found Paul Johnson’s principle to hold true: our “idols” are as miserable a
group of people as I have ever met. Most have troubled or broken marriages.
Nearly all are incurably dependent on psychotherapy. In a heavy irony, these
larger-than-life heroes seem tormented by self-doubt.
I have also spent time with
people I call “servants.” Doctors and nurses who work among the ultimate
outcasts, leprosy patients in rural India.A Princeton
graduate who runs a hotel for the homeless in Chicago.Health
workers who have left high-paying jobs to serve in a backwater town of Mississippi.Relief workers in Somalia, Sudan, Ethiopia,
Bangladesh, and other repositories of human suffering. The PhD’s I met in
Arizona, who are now scattered throughout jungles of South America translating
the Bible into obscure languages. I was prepared to honor and admire these
servants, to hold them up as inspiring examples. I was not prepared to envy them.
Yet as I now reflect on the
two groups side by side, stars and servants, the servants clearly emerge as the
favored ones, the graced ones. Without question, I would rather spend time
among the servants than among the stars: they possess qualities of depth and
richness and even joy that I have not found elsewhere. Servants work for low
pay, long hours, and no applause, “wasting” their talents and skills among the
poor and uneducated. Somehow, though, in the process of losing their lives they
find them. The poor in spirit and the meek are indeed blessed, I now believe.
Theirs is the kingdom of heaven, and it is they who will inherit the earth.—Philip
Yancey
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A meek and a quiet spirit
God will not despise.—Psalm 51:17
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Everywhere you look, people
are busy trying to build their own “kingdoms” of power and influence. They
strive and sacrifice to make a name for themselves. Desperate to prove their
independence, these men and women exhaust themselves chasing worldly success
and self-sufficiency. …
God offers us so much more
than the delusion of success—he offers us his kingdom, on his terms. We must
come helpless and humble, knowing that we cannot gain his kingdom on our own;
we only obtain it when we humbly accept Christ’s love and sacrifice on our
behalf. We come as beggars, and then we are given an esteemed place in God’s
kingdom as his adopted children.
… Only when we become
beggars will we experience the riches of God’s grace.