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The Place of Humiliation
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If You can do anything, have compassion on us and help us —Mark 9:22 |
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| After every
time of exaltation, we are brought down with a sudden rush into things as
they really are, where it is neither beautiful, poetic, nor thrilling. The
height of the mountaintop is measured by the dismal drudgery of the valley,
but it is in the valley that we have to live for the glory of God. We
see His glory on the mountain, but we never live for His glory
there. It is in the place of humiliation that we find our true worth to God—
that is where our faithfulness is revealed. Most of us can do things if we
are always at some heroic level of intensity, simply because of the natural
selfishness of our own hearts. But God wants us to be at the drab everyday
level, where we live in the valley according to our personal relationship
with Him. Peter thought it would be a wonderful thing for them to remain on
the mountain, but Jesus Christ took the disciples down from the mountain and
into the valley, where the true meaning of the vision was explained (see Mark
9:5-6 , Mark
14-23 ). "If you can do anything . . . ." It takes the valley of humiliation to remove the skepticism from us. Look back at your own experience and you will find that until you learned who Jesus really was, you were a skillful skeptic about His power. When you were on the mountaintop you could believe anything, but what about when you were faced with the facts of the valley? You may be able to give a testimony regarding your sanctification, but what about the thing that is a humiliation to you right now? The last time you were on the mountain with God, you saw that all the power in heaven and on earth belonged to Jesus— will you be skeptical now, simply because you are in the valley of humiliation? |