This is a short meditation from week 2 (March 16, 2011) of a series of Wednesday night messages on The Prodigal Son, inspired by the writings of Henri J.M. Nouwen (compiled in the devotional "From Fear to Love," © The Henri Nouwen Legacy Trust.) - Pastor Tom
Satan's three temptations (Matthew 4:1-11) were towards "upward mobility." Be relevant: do something the world will praise you for like making bread out of stone. Be spectacular: jump off the temple pinnacle for all to see. Be powerful: have dominion over everyone and everything. But God's way is, "Blessed are the humble. Blessed are the poor in spirit. Blessed are the meek. Blessed are the peacemakers."
In a sense, God is the most humble being in the universe. On the one hand, He deserves and accepts worship, and He has absolute confidence in his abilities. Therefore, He doesn't feel the need to protect His reputation. Since His love is perfect. He is absolutely others focused. He's not clingy or needy. He gives love freely and leaves us free in love to decide how to respond. He never feels the need to offer self-justification or explanation. Likewise, when we return to Him, He doesn't remind us that He was right all along.
Since we are creations of this all-powerful yet servant-hearted God, a life of downward mobility is appropriate for us. The prodigal son desired the opposite. He was not content to be under the roof – and rules – of his father any more, or in the shadow of his older brother.
It requires humility to put yourself under someone else's authority, even if that someone else is God. Moses encouraged the people of Israel to humbly obey God's commands, decrees and laws, so that they and their children after them would learn to fear the Lord and enjoy His blessings (Deuteronomy 6:1-2). James pointed out that boasting and bragging is not only absurd for humans, but evil (James 4:16). It goes against the very nature of God. But Jesus showed His willingness to embrace downward mobility. He humbled himself on our behalf, beginning at His conception. Every stage of human life through which He went was a great imposition for the Son of God. We remember them in the Apostles' Creed. Conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the virgin mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, crucified, died, buried. All this He chose to do. His famous prayer in Gethsemene, "Not My will but Yours be done," was not just His prayer for that moment, but the theme for His earthly life.
That is the key to Godly downward mobility. "Not my will but yours be done." I don't doubt that most followers of Christ want that. Not my will, but God's be done. But we are inconsistent. We make mistakes. But if we get to know the humble heart of God, we can react to our mistakes in a good way. Henri Nouwen says, "Have a sense of compassion for your own journey. A sense of, 'Yes, I'm loved when I take a risk. I'm loved even when I make a mistake because, somehow, it's an expression of my desire to claim myself. I did it in the wrong way, but I didn't have any other way to do it at that moment.' Otherwise, you start hurting yourself and putting yourself down and then the return (to God) becomes guilt-ridden and the One who awaits you becomes a dark God who says, 'Heh, heh. I always knew you would need me again.'"
Humility is self-forgetfulness. God doesn't have to justify Himself, or prove Himself right, and make sure everybody else knows it. God, in a sense, forgets Himself in favor of remembering us. The prodigal's father didn't spend any time making sure his returning son recognized his own foolishness and the father's wisdom, his own faithlessness and the father's faithfulness. He was focused on His son. He was dead, and is alive again! He was lost, and is found!
Likewise, our tendency to beat ourselves up is not humble as we often suppose. It emphasizes our role, and deemphasizes God's, as if there is some level of sincerity, some amount of regret that will compel Him to accept us. That is not the way our humble Father operates. He shamelessly longs for His children, doesn't mind if everyone sees Him running to them, and interrupts their apologies with His embrace.
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