Leadership Thought: How Low Can We Go?

Dear Friends,

A young seminary graduate came up to the pulpit, very self-confident and immaculately dressed. He began to deliver his first sermon in his first church and the words simply would not come out. Finally, he burst into tears and up leaving the platform obviously humbled.

There were two older ladies sitting in the front row and one remarked to the other, “If he'd come in like he went out, he would have gone out like he came in.”

Humility is a key quality of the one who seeks to be a servant of God. There is always the temptation to exalt ourselves, and to glorify our own accomplishments. To do so can be very dangerous.

In Acts 12 we read the consequences of King Herod’s refusal to give glory to God. “On the appointed day Herod, wearing his royal robes, sat on the throne and delivered a public address to the people. They shouted, ‘This is the voice of a God, not of a man.’ Immediately, because Herod did not give praise to God, and Angel of the Lord struck him down, and he was eaten by worms and died.” Acts 12: 21-23.

The Lord is a jealous God, and he will not share his glory with man. Isaiah writes, “I am the Lord; That is my name! I will not give my glory to another or my praise to idols” (Isaiah 42:8).

The best way to avoid the consequences of pride is to remember what F. B. Meyer once wrote: “I used to think that God’s gifts were on shelves one above the other and that the taller we grew in Christian character the more easily we could reach then. I now find that God gifts are on shelves one beneath the other and that it is not a question of growing taller but of stooping lower.”

Too bad that poor old Herod hadn’t learned this for at least he had an excuse, but not us. Let's keep stooping, and if we do, who knows the gifts we might discover as we serve the Lord Jesus Christ with humble hearts.

Remember “It’s always a good idea to begin at the bottom in everything except in learning how to swim.” Quoted from Quotations for the Christian World by Edyth Draper, 326.

Yours in faith and friendship,

Tom