The Beauty of Humility

We just had D-Now this past weekend (yes I realize that it has been a year since I had a blog entry). As always it was a great weekend. The speakers did a great job. The bands were awesome and lead some incredible times of praise. I think the curriculum was better than we have had at DNOW for a while. Small group discussions were intense. The support from parents and volunteers was phenomenal. Just a great weekend. I think God truly had an opportunity to speak. But none of those things are what I will remember. Those things can been seen more or less every year at DNOW and other events...and that is great. But there was one thing about this DNOW that was a little different for me. We took some time to do a little service project Saturday morning along with some students from Grace Evangelical Church. I think I actually got the chance to see a glimmer of Christ that morning. We went to downtown Atlanta to work with a homeless ministry called Safehouse Outreach. It was a fairly typical ministry to homeless people, which I have seen a lot of lately. We provided a sack lunch for some men and women living in some difficult scenarios. We provided some basic hygiene kits for some also. We sat and had some conversations with the hope of sharing the gospel of Jesus. What Christ does with that is up to Him. I am sure there were some physical needs met that day. Maybe there were some emotional needs met. Hopefully there were some spiritual needs met. However, i know that I am too much of a septic at times and have to remind myself to just surrender all of that God as best i can. But there was something else I saw that was seered into my head. On one side of the small meeting room we were working in there was a row of chairs set up. Men and women could come over to that row of chairs and receive a free pair of new socks. There was one catch. To receive those socks they had to allow their feet to be washed. When I first heard we were going to be doing this I was really curious how our students would respond. I figured a couple would agree to do this and maybe they would...but probably only for a very few minutes and then they would move on to one of the other tasks they could be involved in. But I saw several of our students take part in this opportunity and I was blown away by the humility with which they did it. And not just to one person but one after another. I wish I could describe the way these peoples faces lit up as our students would remove their shoes and socks and then wash and care for their feet...some terribly rough, ragged and abused feet mind you. I could not help but to picture Christ as He did the same for His disciples. I know that those men and women getting their feet washed saw Christ. I was reminded of what Christ can do with a life that is humbly surrendered to Him. Once we get out of the way with our material selfishness, He can truly be seen and He can bring to Himself the glory that He deserves.