I wrote about how the man or woman who walks by faith in Christ still looks a little like this world—because we are called to treasure the value of people in this world, and called to continue to serve them.
Oswald Chambers said it even more starkly. We are “called to be the ‘doormat’ of other men,” he wrote.
Jesus was the doormat first, giving up his divine rights and divine nature for the sake of those who had yet to care at all for what he had done. If we are so attached to our own pride and our own privileges that we are not prepared to be doormats after the model of Jesus, then we are in the wrong faith. Or, at the very least, our hearts have not yet grown into the faith we have chosen.
Again: The Son was the doormat first. In your own life, consider how far you have been from Christ at some point. Consider the inattention or lack of regard you gave him during some past (or recent) time in your life.
Now, consider the fullness of who the Son is. Consider who he has been for you—whether you appreciated it or not. As the one through whom all things are made, the Son is and has always been the one who sustains you. This aspect of God, the one who became human for a time, is the one who fills you with thought, breath, and life. He is the provider of every blessing that has ever relieved, comforted, or enriched you, and he is even the one who measures out and tailors every suffering for you, giving you some of the insights you now know the most deeply and fully. What have you given him in return?
That is, how long do you go, or how long have you gone, without giving the Son—without giving the Lord—any more than your passing acknowledgement or thanks?
It is a loving part of our fleeting human life that we get to taste a little bit of the same humility that we presume to expect of our God. The world was made, and we did not make it. Therefore, the Son is always the one we have lived in and rested upon, whether we recognized it or not. When at last we do begin to see this, the recognition gives special significance to the fact that when Jesus healed the lame, he told them to carry their mats. He told them, in other words, to keep hold of the mat you sat upon for so long. Keep touching that which has always cushioned you, and do not let it go.
Oswald Chambers said it even more starkly. We are “called to be the ‘doormat’ of other men,” he wrote.
Jesus was the doormat first, giving up his divine rights and divine nature for the sake of those who had yet to care at all for what he had done. If we are so attached to our own pride and our own privileges that we are not prepared to be doormats after the model of Jesus, then we are in the wrong faith. Or, at the very least, our hearts have not yet grown into the faith we have chosen.
Again: The Son was the doormat first. In your own life, consider how far you have been from Christ at some point. Consider the inattention or lack of regard you gave him during some past (or recent) time in your life.
Now, consider the fullness of who the Son is. Consider who he has been for you—whether you appreciated it or not. As the one through whom all things are made, the Son is and has always been the one who sustains you. This aspect of God, the one who became human for a time, is the one who fills you with thought, breath, and life. He is the provider of every blessing that has ever relieved, comforted, or enriched you, and he is even the one who measures out and tailors every suffering for you, giving you some of the insights you now know the most deeply and fully. What have you given him in return?
That is, how long do you go, or how long have you gone, without giving the Son—without giving the Lord—any more than your passing acknowledgement or thanks?
It is a loving part of our fleeting human life that we get to taste a little bit of the same humility that we presume to expect of our God. The world was made, and we did not make it. Therefore, the Son is always the one we have lived in and rested upon, whether we recognized it or not. When at last we do begin to see this, the recognition gives special significance to the fact that when Jesus healed the lame, he told them to carry their mats. He told them, in other words, to keep hold of the mat you sat upon for so long. Keep touching that which has always cushioned you, and do not let it go.
