Author: Happy

“Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.” (Philippians 2:5-8)

I love this passage from Paul’s letter to the Philippians. Notice how it begins. When Paul wants us to get our act together and change our attitudes and actions, he begins with Jesus. “Be like Jesus!” he says, and then tells us about Jesus.

Did you notice which attributes of Jesus that he calls our attention to?

Sacrifice. Jesus “emptied himself” of a thing he was fully entitled to—his equality with God. He could have called, you remember, ten thousand angels, but he did not. Jesus didn’t take advantage of every right entitled to him. Unfortunately we often miss this example—as our entitlement mentalities clamor for things we don’t deserve. Have you sacrificed anything for your faith lately, or is that off limits?

Service. Most of us don’t mind being servants until we’re treated like one. Jesus came not to be served, but to serve. He didn’t do favors for friends who would return them. He healed thankless lepers, preached to confused sinners, and walked through life generally unappreciated for who he really was (see #1, by the way!). Jesus’ attitude of service needs to pervade our lives. “How can I help you?” is a phrase that should typify Christ-followers. Who have you served this week?

Submission. Verse 8 says that Jesus became obedient even to death. Jesus willingly submits to the Father, yet we tend to balk at authority figures. Ephesians 5:21 says that Christians are to submit to one another because of our reverence for Jesus. The judge of the universe submitted himself to the unfair judgment of Pilate. It’s a hard pill to swallow, but Jesus hasn’t asked us to do anything he wouldn’t do himself.

Sacrifice, service, and submission: it is the attitude of Jesus in a capsule. We’ll never match his perfect example, but how do we compare when we look into the mirror of our hearts?

We have all sorts of names for the same phenomenon: back-seat driving, arm-chair quarterbacking, second-guesser…you get the idea. When Neil Anderson was the editor of the Gospel Advocate, he said that based on the letters, emails, and phone calls he got, he must be the only person in the world who didn’t know how to run his business! All of us have this tendency to question things over which we have no control.

There’s an interesting little line in one of David’s Psalms. Pay attention to the end of it: “O Lord, my heart is not lifted up; my eyes are not raised too high; I do not occupy myself with things too great and too marvelous for me.” (Psalm 131:1)

I wonder sometimes if we don’t set our eyes on things “too great” for our finite minds. We question God more than is healthy. We forget that his ways are infinitely higher than ours (Isaiah 55:9). Paul chastised the Corinthians by asking, “Who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?” (1 Corinthians 2:16). I imagine after that part of the letter was read, there was silence–kind of like when God showed up and started asking questions at the end of Job.

God needed to humble Jeremiah, so he said to him, “If you have raced with men on foot, and they have wearied you, how will you compete with horses?” (Jeremiah 12:5) In other words, “Jeremiah, you are in over your head this time. You can’t keep up with me!” Paul again said, “Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly. Never be wise in your own sight.” (Romans 12:16)

There are some conversations and questions that we really ought to let pass us by. Sometimes we just need to say, “That’s above my pay grade. I don’t know the answer, but I know the One who does!”

I was reading from Genesis 28 the story where Jacob had a beautiful vision in the middle of the wilderness. Having no place to go, he took a stone and lay it under his head as a pillow. As he slept, he saw a ladder where the angels of God ascended and descended, and God affirmed his promise to be with Jacob and his descendants. His words when he awoke from that dream caught my attention: “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it.” (Genesis 28:16)

Jacob isn’t the only one in scripture who had this experience. Much later in Israel’s history in 2 Kings 6, Elisha’s servant was afraid. Israel was vastly outnumbered. The city was surrounded by an army with horses and chariots. He cried out, “What shall we do?” Elisha’s answer was beautiful: “Do not be afraid, for those who are with us are more than those who are with them.” Elisha prayed, and God opened the eyes of the young man so that he saw that the mountain was overflowing with horses and chariots of fire. God was present, and the servant didn’t even know it.

On the morning of the resurrection, two men were walking to Emmaus from Jerusalem. They kept recounting the story of the weekend’s events—the late-night trials, the arrest, and the death of the beloved rabbi. As the men walked, Jesus joined them and spoke with them about the Messiah and how he had to suffer for them to see glory. After their eyes were opened and they recognized the one with whom they walked, they said to each other, “Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the road?” (Luke 24:32) They were literally walking with Jesus, and didn’t know it.

I share these three stories to say this: sometimes you feel alone. Sometimes you don’t think your prayers are making it past the ceiling. Sometimes you’re not sure what future you have at all. When you feel that way, let scripture remind you of this truth: God can be present right there beside you—and you didn’t even know it.

Each one of us tends to treat our own experiences as the gold standard by which all others are judged. If I’ve my first car was a Ford that broke down a lot, I’ll probably believe that all Fords are junk. Very little will change my mind. No survey, no statistic, and no article in Consumer Reports has the power to unseat my experience.

This fallacy in thinking affects every part of our existence, but it is likely at its most dangerous in the spiritual realm. When we talk about pain and suffering, we have a hard time comprehending why these things happen. We can’t imagine anything that would make it worthy.

I was reading a book about heaven that illustrated this thought. Calvin Miller wrote:

“If I tried to define heaven, I would likely fall into the same trap as people who write serious theological works on the subject. I  have read a few of these books, but I almost always get the feeling that the authors are taking their celestial pictures with weak cameras and cheap film, ultimately producing only vague images of God’s wondrously vast reality. Apart from the glimpses of heaven that one finds in the Bible, how much more can we know for now? I think Isaiah 55:9 says it best for me, in the Lord’s own words: ‘For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts.’”

The pictures we take from our experiences are vivid images in technicolor, while the images of things not yet experienced are lackluster. In Christianity, we cling to the truth that there are things truer than my feelings, realer than my experiences, and more promising than what I see right in front of me.

In the words of Jesus, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” (John 20:29)

Peter wrote, “Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.” (1 Peter 1:8-9)

May we be the people who rejoice in the things that are more real than the reality in front of our eyes.