Humility Unlocks Love

As we walk in a new, fresh Easter season, let us look at humility. When we humble ourselves we create a vacuum, which God can step into and fill, rather than trying to manage and control things on our own. Jesus said, "He who humbles himself will be exalted" (Luke 14:11). The hard part is waiting for God.

We need faith to believe that God will take care of us when others don't. My mother’s favorite saying was, “the animal that has no tail, it is God who wipes off flies on its back.” Meaning, God is the helper to the helpless.

That's why we can't love without faith. All Jesus' commands assume that we will trust God "Give and it will be given to you" Luke 6:38 requires us to stop trusting in our own resources and wait for God to provide once we've emptied our pockets.

We can't fake humility. It's so foreign to us that it takes the very energy of grace. When we take the low place, we see clearly. Pride doesn't even notice humility, because humility is so quiet. But down low, we see not only other people better, but also ourselves - and God - better. That's why the outcasts of society - children, women, foreigners, the poor and disabled - are attracted to Jesus. They see him clearly. They know they have nothing to put on the table; they are empty. Drawn by his grace and beauty, they cling to his love.

Jesus is drawn to people who are in the low place. He loves those at the bottom. Why? Because that's where he is. He said, "Learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls" (Matthew 11:29-30). His first bed was a feeding trough. He ate with prostitutes, sinners, and tax collectors. He talked with Samaritans. He touched lepers. Jesus' heart was humble.

We can feel safe in the low place because God lives there. God is there ahead of us, inviting us to come live with him, to taste his goodness. The closest thing to the feel of God is to humble ourselves, to be concerned not with position, but with people. Mother Teresa said, "The surest way to be one with God is to accept humiliation." When Jesus invited people to love, he invites them to the low place. Ego - the self - gets in the way of love at times. Almost every religion recognizes this. Buddha solved the problem of self by proposing the annihilation or immersion of the self into "the all."

Just 30 years after Jesus' death, Paul told the church of Philippi, "Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made Himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself, and became obedient to death - even death on a cross!" (Philippians 2:5-8).

To go with Jesus to His death is to die with Him, to die to self. Let's go now again, and walk with Jesus to the cross. Humility unlocks love. May this Easter season be filled with joy and peace and humility. May this love lead us to perform random acts of kindness and senseless acts of beauty . May God richly bless you.

Best wishes, your friend and pastor.

Pastor Samuel King-Kabu

Biking with Roger (part 7)

I awoke bright and early in my tiny tent at the campground in Portsmouth. It was Saturday morning, the second day of my three-day bicycle excursion across Rhode Island while my wife attended a conference. I was on the eastern side of the vast bay around which stretches most of Rhode Island, and only ten minutes by car from its western side. Alas, I was on a bike and the bridge was closed to bicycles. I would only reach the western side, across from Newport, late in the afternoon.

I awoke at 05:00 and was all packed up and on my way by 06:00. I had reservations for the ferry to Providence at 08:00 and was nearly an hour away from Newport. I dropped off the highlands and rode in along the almost-deserted Navy Road, passing a line of huge aircraft carriers near the end. I had time for breakfast at a diner before arriving at the dock for 07:45.

The passenger and bicycle ferry was right on time for its first morning run. There were only a handful of passengers as we sped inland along the bay. It was a hydrofoil ferry, and so was quite fast. Providence, at the head of the bay, would only be an hour away. I stood out on the roof deck, braving the strong, cool wind, as I watched the landmarks of the previous day's riding pass by on the Eastern shore. When we reached Providence at 09:00, I was only a few minutes ride from where I had been the day before at Noon. At the very end, I had to come down off the roof deck as the ferry barely scraped through the tiny opening in this vast sea wall designed to protect Providence from the fury of hurricane flood tides. The dock was jam packed with people getting ready to head back in the other direction.

I set off cycling southwards along the western shore of the bay. At first the route was through the rather seedy port section of Providence, but soon I was on a residential, coastal drive... Which came to an abrupt end just as soon as I was getting used to it. The shore cut westward and I had to follow streets and boulevards west to the next major southbound road, which would eventually become a quiet, residential shoreline avenue, until... This process kept repeating itself. Sometimes I was on nice quiet roads. Sometimes I was on busy boulevards.

Eventually I connected with U.S. Hwy 1 and headed south. The two-laned highway was actually nicer than the busy boulevards, for I was provided with a nice, wide shoulder. Soon I was able to exit onto U.S. 1A, heading down along the coastline. I crossed under the western side of the bridge from Newport at around 16:00 and reached the crowded beach town of Narragansett-by-the-Sea at 17:00. Once again, I was treated to a brief view of the wide expanse of blue ocean.

Westward from Narragansett, things started to get really weird. I had been following a marked Rhode Island bike route most of the day. Suddenly, at the intersection where U.S. 1A rejoined U.S. 1 proper, now a freeway, I lost the route. I doubled back several times before I realized that they intended bikes to head up onto the freeway. With great trepidation, I rode up the entrance ramp and then stuck to the far right of the six-foot wide concrete shoulder.

I had passed two interchanges before I saw a police car sitting up ahead, hidden so as to catch speeders. I thought my goose was cooked, for he had surely seen me, and there was no place to go anyway but forward. I took the bull by the horns and rode right up to him, apologetically explaining that I had lost my way and was doing my best to follow the bike route. He looked, uncomprehendingly, at me and said that this WAS the bike route! Further along, there were no more interchanges and I began to see mailboxes and driveways coming right out to the freeway. It was a strange kind of road: A divided 4-land highway, but no crossings. A crossroad would join one side. Cars would have to drive westward for a few miles to a "U-Turn", then they could go back eastward again to pick up the very same road on the far side of the highway.

I was racing to get to Burlingame State Park, which had the only tent campground in all of western Rhode Island, and they did not take reservations. With a wrong turn and a 30-minute excursion riding in the wrong direction, I did not end up getting to the campground until well after 19:00. I was most thankful they still had a place for me!

I had passed a decent looking restaurant a mile or so back east, so I set out at dusk along the other side of the freeway. I was treated to a great meal on an indoor terrace overlooking the ocean and an inland bay. Then I had to return, at night. Luckily, I was well equipped with lights by that time, having done a number of nighttime rides. I was six feet away from the cars, at the far edge of the paved shoulder, and could see them coming up behind me for a long time by their headlights anyway. It was with the unlit cyclist, dressed in dark clothes and riding in the wrong direction that I almost had an accident. How could he miss my lights? He must not have been looking. We missed by inches as he flew by I climbed back up the hillside and into the state park and was nestled in my tent by 23:00, ready for the next day, when I would ride on into Connecticut.

(The story will be continued in subsequent editions of the Messenger. Accounts of earlier bike rides can be found at http://rogerkenner.ca/Bike/Bike.html)

Roger Kenner

Dannnebrog

Web Page prepared by:
Roger Kenner & Jette Blair.
Content-New Topics Last Updated: 2007/03/14
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