Humility: Allowing Others to Serve Us 5 November 1999

Jesus came to Simon Peter, who said to him, "Lord, are you going to wash my feet?" Jesus answered, "At the moment you do not know what I am doing, but later you will understand." "Never!" said Peter "You shall never wash my feet." Jesus replied, "If I do not wash you, you can have nothing in common with me". "Then Lord," said Simon Peter, "not only my feet, but my hands and my head as well!" Jesus said, "No one who has taken a bath needs washing, he is clean all over." John 13:6-10 (Jerusalem Bible)

From this, I see two lessons that Jesus taught the disciples. One is that we must serve as Jesus has served. The second and more difficult lesson is to allow others and GOD to serve us. Personally, I think the second lesson is harder than the first. It is natural in us to give to others - to serve others. But it is more difficult to let others help us. It takes more humility to say we need help and allow others to help.

When I was a baby Christian, service to others was drummed into my mind. And so I thought, alright then, I will go and serve and I would not allow anyone to help me. I was hogging all the tasks. I was overworked and miserable and others felt left out and miserable too! In the end, everyone was miserable! It really took some time for me to learn that humility is also allowing others to do their part in serving me. And I am still learning to allow others to help me.

One thing I learned from this is that humility does not only apply to our brothers and sisters in the community. It applies to God more. Humility before the Lord is not blindly rushing to do something WE think is good. Humility before the Lord is waiting for him and doing what HE thinks is best. As I said, in my early days in the Lord, I rushed into things without praying about it and not surprisingly, none of them succeeded.

Humility before the Lord means serving God the way he wants to and allowing God to serve us. Because he is the Lord - he is the Boss. Therefore we do things HIS way. And if he says he wants to do something - then we better be wise enough to let him do it for us. Because if we are like Simon Peter who says to the Lord, "Never!" then we will hear his answer, "You can have nothing in common with me."

In the anniversary of the community, let us therefore pray that we may continue to grow in humility. Serving others in love. But also allowing othesr to serve us in love. Praise the Name of the Lord!

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