April 15 - Humble Beginnings

Read today’s texts first: 1 Samuel 17; Psalms 9; Matthew 2

MAXIMize YOUR DAY
Be it ever so humble, there’s no place like home!
And there’s no place like it for maintaining said
humility, thanks to the family who lives in said home! 

Be it ever so humble, there’s no place like home! And there’s no place like it for maintaining said humility, thanks to the family who lives in said home! Being the youngest of six kids, I was at the bottom of the pecking order. Despite what the so-called experts say (none of whom I suspect were baby brothers), the “babies” of large families are not spoiled – they are neglected by overworked parents, abused by bossy siblings and humbled, make that humiliated, on a daily basis! 

Playing ping pong with my oldest brother recently brought back 65 year-old repressed memories of being traumatized to tears by him when I was first learning the game. The insults he hurled, he told me years later, were offered in love to make me a man. Yah, right! No wonder I identified with David, who was sent by his dad to the battlefield to bring lunch to his older brothers (subservient chores and excessive danger for the baby of the family). Their thanks, “offered in love” by his oldest brother: Why have you come down here? And with whom did you leave those few sheep in the desert? I know how conceited you are and how wicked your heart is; you came down only to watch the battle (17:28).  

The truth is, the humility learned by David during his childhood helped groom him as God’s choice for king. God told Samuel, as he was getting ready to choose the oldest and strongest of Jesse’s sons, Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The Lord does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart (16:7). Abraham, Jacob, Moses, Gideon, Deborah, Samuel, now David - none stood out as natural leaders, no driving ambition, no swagger, no ego, no obvious skills (unless you count slinging stones at tin cans out by the sheepfold a skill). 

What did they have in common? The answer - humility!  A humility expressed through faith and dependence on their God. Saul had it too, at first (15:17), but his early humility was consumed by pride. He learned the hard way that “pride goes before destruction” (Prov. 16:18) and that “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble” (1 Pet. 5:5). The humility David learned, partly because of his older brothers, allowed Him the grace to kill a giant and rule a nation. It also kept him coming back to God before most every challenge, and when he forgot, after every mistake. 

“Lord, I am not ashamed of my humble beginnings. Reading today about Your unassuming birth on earth reminds me that my humility and dependence on You should never end!”