Monday, February 6, 2012

Well, it's been a while....

....BUT......this was worth waiting for! 

I started to follow up that last statement with a comment saying ("In my humble opinion, anyway) but I realized have absurd that would be based on the premise behind this post! Bear with me...you will be laughing at me too in a minute!

After I put my girl child on the bus in the mornings, I like to watch Joyce Meyer.  I love her teaching/preaching style, and her humor is totally in mine with my idea of what's funny. (I like irony....which is also about to tie in with this post if you stay with me)

This morning, Joyce was teaching on HUMILITY and PRIDE. (Insert laugh track here) This is why I thought it was funny when I almost said "In my humble opinion"...which makes no sense since this is my blog and in some way, publishing my own thoughts and thinking they are valuable enough for others to read is somewhat an IRONIC thing. (See? Told you it would tie together eventually)

Notes to self: Focus, stop rambling, drink less caffeine......

So as Joyce was speaking, she made a Facebook post worthy statement: " "Humility is not thinking lowly of yourself, its not thinking of yourself at all!" That alone blew me away. She went on to interview a pastor from Healing Place Church in Baton Rouge La. My niece has attended this church in the past but doesn't any longer. The pastor was Pastor Dino Rizzo. As the interview progressed, Pastor Rizzo said something so profound to me that I had to rewind my TV (LOVE my digital DVR service) and watch it about 10 times, pausing and restarting so I could write it down correctly. In talking of humility, humbleness and pride, this is what he said .

"Jesus could have washed others' feet just by saying it. He could have just stood there and said "Ok, feet be clean" and BOOM, there would have been like a big scrubbing. But He reached down, stooped down, cleaned it, scrubbed it, He touched it. Many people are not going to be reached until we touch them at the point of their need."

I was familiar with the story, but had never thought of how He didn't have to physically wash their feet, He could have had the feet cleaned just by uttering a word. But it was the act of humility, of placing Himself in the role and position of servant, that shows us how we should be treating others. This is true humility!  I grew up knowing this part, of how Jesus humbled himself to a servant's role, but I learned recently in our Tuesday morning Bible class that the job of foot washing was for the lowliest, youngest, least experienced servant of the house. That put new light on it for me! Not only did Jesus humble Himself to a servant position, but to the LOWLIEST of the servants! 

So how often do we humble ourselves for others?
How long as it been since we truly set our selfish nature aside?

Sort of a kick in the pants for a Monday morning....but a well-needed kick.

(The scripture reference for this is John 13)