Monday, March 3, 2008

Around the track

This verse is really hitting me over the head:

"Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others." - Phil. 2:3-4

This is the great struggle of life. Do I live my life through myself or do I live it through Jesus Christ? It is the reason that we can get so off track so quickly. And its the reason why there's that sense of complacency at the end of the day sometimes. It's selfish ambition. It's the focus on me.

I went on a run today and made my way by a local park. It was a pretty small park, in the middle of a neighborhood, and there were a lot of people there. I noticed a dad running on the tiny little track that circled the park. It couldn't have been more than a couple hundred meters around. I'm talking small, not the kind of place you want to do a run. Well, I watched him run around the track and realized I was watching an exhibition on humility. This guy probably didn't want to be running around that tiny little track. But his kid really wanted to play, and needed someone close by to watch. The dad was looking out for the interests of his kid over his own interests.

And it kinda hit me that it's that kind of attitude of humility that is important. Humility is a phantom concept. We don't really know what it truly means. We see false humility all the time. And we see downright arrogance all the time. But what is that true humility? It's in those verses in Philippians. Paul hit the nail on the head. And I can learn a whole lot by letting those words seep into my life and my daily actions and my disposition.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

so i was going to get to meet you for real last weekend, i hate that it didn't work out!