“The way up is down” — Martin Lloyd-Jones
(1 Peter 5:6 NCV) Be humble under God’s powerful hand so he will lift you up when the right time comes.
This is another piece of wisdom from God that seems to be backwards. Bow down and God will lift us up. Or as some translations have it: (1 Peter 5:6 NKJV) Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time.
We want our rightful place in life; get what we deserve, yada, yada.
So if we want to go up, God says first go down.
Jesus put it this way:
(Matthew 20:26 NKJV) Yet it shall not be so among you; but whoever desires to become great among you, let him be your servant. (Matthew 20:27 NKJV) And whoever desires to be first among you, let him be your slave.
I would say very contrary to current thought, but it has always been that way, since Eve decided God was holding out on her and to get what was rightfully hers she needed to stand up and take it. Bite that apple, Eve girl! (Genesis 3)
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=genesis%203&version=47
The point is we want to be lifted up, exalted; we all want to be the rock star. And God points to the opportunity — The way up is down. Bow down and be lifted up.
But something very interesting happens on the way to the store.
Once we bow down before God, as in truly bow before him in our current circumstances, not as in our superficial, syrupy, dripping with cliche bowing down but actually bowing before God in real life. Once we do this, our thoughts of being lifted up, exalted, being given our “rightful” place, dissipate, poof, vanish, gone, see ya later, dude!
God honors his word; he does lift us up. But where he brings us to is different than what we thought it would be; different as in better, as in the way God does things. Our idea is seen to be the petty, contrived little device that it was.
Being lifted into God’s purpose and plan and realizing it is more than enough; being an itsy bitsy piece of God’s amazing plan and purpose and intent far exceeds our expectations. God whooshes us to another plane in our walk with him.
Yeah, God. Or maybe I should say praise you, My God and King, Sovereign Lord, Gracious and Merciful Master.
