01-07-2022, 08:52 AM
I once tried to enunciate through humor a moral principle on this forum and it fell flat. I think my approach was faulty, so let me try again...
The whole point of humility is that you realize you are easily replaced, but that the work you do for the Kingdom is what's critical. In Scripture, there is a fundamental recognition of roles as far more important than the people who fill them. Thus, very often in the Old Testament, someone's "name" is actually a title, not a personal moniker. The idea is that the role shapes you, that you are morally obliged to rise to the occasion, as it were.
We are fungible as individuals. It would be very easy for God to get someone else to fulfill our roles, and most certainly He could find folks better qualified. We should never lose sight of that. But for whatever reason, He chose us and here we are.
Do you sense that the roles we fill in His Kingdom at this time are critical for God's plans? "We hold this treasure in clay jars..." He could do it without us, but for whatever reasons, He has chosen to use us. This is the point at which we joke that He must not have much to work with. He tends to favor the idiots who are available over the experts who think they have better things to do. And maybe they do, but the point is that when He wants to do great miracles, the primary qualification is that you don't filter too much. (That's how Satan got into trouble.)
The original joke I tried to make is that we end up in a sort of "elite" position, while knowing how ludicrous it is that anyone would think we were elite type folks. This is how we come to the place where we would rather folks forget us individually and remember what God did with us. What a privilege it is to be involved in something for which we know ourselves to be ill-qualified in human terms.
In that sense, we hold an elite place without being actually elite.
The whole point of humility is that you realize you are easily replaced, but that the work you do for the Kingdom is what's critical. In Scripture, there is a fundamental recognition of roles as far more important than the people who fill them. Thus, very often in the Old Testament, someone's "name" is actually a title, not a personal moniker. The idea is that the role shapes you, that you are morally obliged to rise to the occasion, as it were.
We are fungible as individuals. It would be very easy for God to get someone else to fulfill our roles, and most certainly He could find folks better qualified. We should never lose sight of that. But for whatever reason, He chose us and here we are.
Do you sense that the roles we fill in His Kingdom at this time are critical for God's plans? "We hold this treasure in clay jars..." He could do it without us, but for whatever reasons, He has chosen to use us. This is the point at which we joke that He must not have much to work with. He tends to favor the idiots who are available over the experts who think they have better things to do. And maybe they do, but the point is that when He wants to do great miracles, the primary qualification is that you don't filter too much. (That's how Satan got into trouble.)
The original joke I tried to make is that we end up in a sort of "elite" position, while knowing how ludicrous it is that anyone would think we were elite type folks. This is how we come to the place where we would rather folks forget us individually and remember what God did with us. What a privilege it is to be involved in something for which we know ourselves to be ill-qualified in human terms.
In that sense, we hold an elite place without being actually elite.
The tulips might be even more beautiful/healthy when planted that way. Who knows? (Or you might go get the bulb planter... God did chase Jonah down to deliver the message to Nineveh, even though Jonah wasn't particularly "available".)