In this experience I was invited to a banqueting table beautifully covered in a sparking white cloth. The table was laden with choice selections of the finest fruits and meats. Delicacies of every kind abounded. However, one dish in particular was highlighted. It was a rough hewn wooden platter containing a single loaf of bread. This simple loaf contained all the nutrition needed for a strong body. It was foundational to a life of health and wholeness. This loaf was called the “bread of humility” and was of great importance to the Lord.

What is humility? Humility is the complete awareness of our utter dependence on God as the Creator and Sustainer of everything that ever was, is, and will be. It is the recognition that the gifts and abilities we have are given to us by God and His expectation of our working these specific abilities to make them flourish, to more adequately serve our brother and sister.

When we recognize who we are - whether carpenter, doctor, politician, farmer, lawyer, housewife, or apostle - we realize these are only functions, neither more or less important than the other, which God has called us to in order to glorify Him and build up one another.

Imagine if every Christian was confident of their specific ability and talent, recognizing it as God’s present to them, and exercising their gifts to the best of their ability in order to serve one another. Gone would be envy and selfish ambition. Gone would be mans silly pecking order. Gone would be the honoring of only the “chosen few.’ Gone would be ruinous flattery. Instead each of us would be fully and joyfully taken with God’s calling, knowing He has good works ordained for us to do that only we can do. We would look at our brothers and sisters in the same light and do what we are able to help them fulfill their call.

Let’s willingly eat the bread of humility that we may stand as a fully functioning body with arms linked in order to see this world touched with the transforming power of Jesus Christ.

Philippians 2: 1-11 is our guide.

            If you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose. 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 interest of others.

            Your attitude should be the same as that of Jesus Christ:

                        Who, being in very nature God,

did not consider equality with God something to be grasped,

 but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant,

being made in human likeness.

And being found in appearance as a man

He humbled himself and became obedient to death

Even death on a cross.

Therefore God exalted him to the highest place

And gave him the name that is above every name,

That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow

In heaven and on earth and under the earth,

And that every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord,

To the glory of God the Father.