June 06, 2016

Humbled in Greatness

Muhammad Ali is quoted as saying, “It’s hard to be humble when you are as good as I am.” I can see the Lord’s wisdom in doing whatever it takes to keep believers humble. The Apostle Paul had a lot to boast about — a man who had visions and revelations from the Lord and was caught up to paradise. Paul readily admits that it is the Lord who kept his ego in check, “To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly great revelations, there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me” (2 Cor 12:7-9 NIV).

1 comment:

Steve Corey said...

Gail;

-----Several years ago I saw a story on ABC Evening News about an university professor who tired of teaching his students from static photos in text books. He developed an animated video of the inner workings of the cell. This news story presented a short clip from that video showing how waste materials are ejected from inside the cell.
-----Protein molecules collect to form a track-way from the location of waste material having been bundled within a “bag” formed by other protein molecules. Then more proteins form “feet” with treads locking into grooves in the track-way. Two legs form of proteins attaching these “feet” to a short chain of proteins having become a “stick body”. From it two “arms” of proteins come together attaching to the “bag” of waste. This little “stickman” then proceeds to “walk” along the track-way until reaching a portal in the cell wall through which it thrusts the “bag”. Then all these proteins detach from each other and float off to become components of some other mechanism somewhere else within the cell.
-----If those tiny proteins balked at being “cogs” in the greater mechanism of a stickman, there would be no stickmen to carry out the trash. The cell would choke to death on its own garbage. This demonstrates how important these tiny proteins being just “cogs” in the bigger machines of the “stickmen” being just “cogs” in the bigger machine of the cell are. And yet any one of the stickmen can be non-existent without being missed, for at any one time there are over ten thousand of these things hauling out the trash.
-----We are like those proteins and stickmen. We are crucial to God’s design in the universe. But any one of us who’s out-grown his britches can be missed without the universe even noticing the void left in his vacated place. We are both vital and dispensable. Our humility or lack thereof determines which. The universe is what it is made by I AM THAT I AM. That should be enough to convince us to be what we are where we are being it. “The LORD has made everything for its purpose, even the wicked for the day of trouble.” (Prov 16:4)


Love you all,
Steve Corey