12

Less Important

I Choose to Serve God and Others

N ot long ago, I snapped at one of my IF:Gathering colleagues. Worse still, this was a new coworker, someone who doesn’t yet know me and thus doesn’t know that I’m generally not a snappy person. Worst of all, I didn’t apologize. At least, not at first.

I won’t go into detail about what she did that catalyzed my—let’s say “passionate”—response. But I reacted with such agitation, such animation, such temper, that I completely shut her down. I saw that I’d shut her down. Only an imbecile wouldn’t have noticed that. But did I remedy the situation by asking for forgiveness? Nope. I went on with my day. (Just a little aside: If you want to intern at IF:Gathering, please don’t let this incident discourage you from applying. Ninety-nine percent of the time, I am really, really nice.)

Later that afternoon, after I left the office, I thought about calling this new team member to apologize, but then my train of thought embarked on a journey of self-justification: Maybe it was no big deal to her. She’s probably already moved on. Maybe by calling and drawing attention to my little oops, I’ll only be stirring things up.

I thought about how I’d been justified in my reaction because her perspective had been so far off base. I also thought about how tired I was and how hungry I was and how I deserved a little grace. Yes, I felt sure that if she knew all the stress I was under, she’d want to give me grace.

So I gave myself grace.

Had I been paying closer attention, I would have recognized the lie that my self-esteem is a valid guide for navigating life.

Maybe you can relate? We compare and contrast, justify and judge, and spend a ridiculous amount of time contemplating our identity and place in this world. Maybe this is why the apostle Paul cautioned us not to think of ourselves more highly than we ought. Instead, we’re to “honor one another above [ourselves].” 1

But developing such an approach to life requires us to deliberately and repeatedly interrupt the natural trajectory of our thoughts.

One of my favorite thinkers on the Christ-following life is the nineteenth-century pastor and prolific writer Andrew Murray. One of his best-known books is on this subject of humility. In fact, that’s the title of the book: Humility. Not very creative, but sometimes plain works best.

In his book Murray wrote at length about the nuances of considering others “more significant than yourselves,” referring to such humility in lofty terms like “participation in the life of Jesus” and “the place of entire dependence on God” and “the only soil in which the graces root” and “the disposition which prepares the soul for living on trust” and “our redemption” and “our saviour.” 2

He also said this: “The question is often asked, how we can count others better than ourselves, when we see that they are far below us in wisdom and in holiness, in natural gifts, or in grace received.” 3

Now, see—this is why I love Andrew Murray. He knew exactly how our minds work against us, and he had the courage to put our true thoughts into words!

Pride says,

He’s the one who’s wrong.

Her overreaction is what caused this mess.

I am not that bad.

My thought about snapping at my colleague was, It wasn’t that big of a deal.

You probably know where this story is going.

For the next twenty-four hours, a passage from Scripture kept coming to mind. Whenever my mouth gets me into trouble, in fact, I tend to think of this passage in 1 Peter 2. The context is all about how we should live as God’s chosen, special people, and the short answer is that we’re to follow the example of Jesus. But I’m guessing you knew that!

Here’s where it gets complicated, at least for me. Jesus, who came to earth from heaven and took up the form of a human body, lived His life flawlessly and was declared by God to be sinless in the end. This includes the tense confrontation with the religious leaders who decided He would be killed on a Roman cross. This, for a man who, according to verse 22, “committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth.”

So Jesus found Himself standing before powerful men, men who held in their hands the power to send Him to His death. They were questioning Him—reviling Him, the text says—asking Him to plead His case. Jesus faced a key decision: How would He respond?

The answer convicts me every time. “When he was reviled,” verse 23 says, “he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly.”

Ugh.

Jesus did nothing wrong and held His tongue when falsely accused; my teammate sorta, kinda, maybe misspoke, and I lashed out in response?

The Way of Humility

We’ve been talking for several chapters now about various choices we can make when confronted with toxic thought patterns, about different thoughts we can choose to think, thoughts that reflect the mind of Christ.

When we’re tempted, for example, to use busyness to distract ourselves from dealing with the truth, we can choose instead to be still in the presence of God.

When our minds are consumed with anxiety and doubts and fears, we can choose instead to remember what’s true about God.

We can think about His nearness.

We can think about His goodness.

We can think about His provision.

We can think about His love.

When we’re tempted to believe we’re all alone in this world, we can choose instead the thought, The Spirit of God lives inside of me, and because of that, I’m never alone. There are people who love me, who want to be with me. I can reach out to them instead of sitting here, stuck.

When we’re tempted to think cynical thoughts—that life is worthless, that our efforts are pointless, that nothing matters in the end, that no one can be trusted—we can choose instead to open ourselves up to the world around us, taking delight in God Himself and all He has done for us.

These are all choices that we can make to reconfigure our thinking patterns and help ourselves become whom we long to be.

This brings us to our fifth weapon for shifting out of harmful patterns of thinking: humility. One of the enemies of our minds especially rampant in this generation is the inflated view of self being handed to us all over social media, in the shows and movies we watch, even in the self-help books we read. We’re fed a continuous message of how much we matter, how very important we are—and we believe every word of the deceiver.

We can make a different choice.

When the enemy invites us to taste the fruit of self-importance and “be like God,” 4 we can choose instead to take up our cross and follow Jesus, knowing that our identity is anchored in Him alone.

But everything in our human nature will fight against it.

LIE : The more self-esteem I have, the better life will go for me.

TRUTH : The more I choose God and others over myself, the more joyful I will be.

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! 5

I CHOOSE TO SERVE GOD AND OTHERS OVER SERVING MYSELF.