Top Is Bottom and Bottom Is Top

          I don't know when or why it happened, but most Americans feel like we have to be the best at everything.  We have to be the prettiest, the strongest, the fastest, the smartest, the thinnest, the best dressed, and we have to have the best phone, the best car, the best house.  We have to be on top, better than others.  Somehow if we have these things, we then feel better about ourselves, like we are OK.  But in reality, these wrong ideas create lots of stress in our lives.  We work our lives away trying to get things, but these things have no eternal value...it is all vanity, selfish ambition, pride.
          And so we come to today's topic...status.  God's ways are so much higher than our ways.  He is so unconcerned about outward appearance.  All of that is just pride, and God says that He resists the proud, so if we are trying to fit into the world and be "on top", God is resisting everything we do.  And we can feel God's opposition when anxieties and stress and fears hit us.  God is saying, "What are you doing?  Your eyes are on the wrong things.  You are following the wrong things.  Turn around and life will get easier."  But what do we do?  We work harder.  We worry longer.  We stay awake and toss and turn, trying to figure out how we can make it.

          What we don't realize is that in God's kingdom, up is down and down is up, life is death and death is life.  To be greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven, we have to be on bottom.  We have to think of all people as more important than we are, and we must become a servant to all.  This is the "highest calling"...to serve others.  So when others walk into a room, instead of thinking "Who is top dog now?" we know that this person, too, is more important than we are, and we have the awesome privelege of serving them.  This is what Jesus did for us, and now He is calling us to do this for others.
          So what do we get in return?  Jesus said, "Come to Me all you who are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.  Come and learn of me for I am GENTLE and LOWLY.  Take My yoke for My burden is easy and My yoke is light.  So when we reach for the "high calling" of seeing others as more important than ourselves and serving others, we get rest and peace.  We don't have to worry about what others think of us because it doesn't matter.  We just take the mantle of our King, and we become like Him, and our Father in Heaven smiles down at us with deep pleasure and gives grace to our humble heart.
          So my prayer for you this day, my friend, is that you, too, will lay your burdens down and take upon yourself the yoke of Jesus.  May you learn from Him to be lowly and gentle, and may the God of grace no longer have to resist you, but instead may He pour out on you the richness of His love and mercy and grace, and may you find rest for your soul.  I ask this in Jesus' name.  AMEN

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