If you want to fit into the culture of God’s kingdom, you’ll have to get comfortable with paradoxes. You want to be strong? Embrace your weakness. You want to rejoice? Learn how to mourn. You really want to experience life? Let it go. You want to find yourself? Then lose yourself. These and many others seem counterintuitive, yet they are vital keys to knowing God.
One often-neglected paradox is the path to greatness: “Whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant” (Matthew 20:26 niv). While most people, desperately trying to climb another rung higher on the ladder, prioritize their own needs above others—and sometimes even step on each other on the way up—kingdom citizens become great by valuing others’ gifts and helping others grow. We defer, we wait, we serve. In other words, the way to get higher is to get low.
Going down in order to go up may seem risky. What if God doesn’t lift us up to places of influence? But that’s the nature of faith; we have to choose to live his truth before we experience the benefits of it. But those benefits will inevitably come. God orchestrates the lives of his people; he promotes his servants into places of influence when he’s ready. Even so, serving is its own reward. If you really want to be great, help others become great. The world and the kingdom will benefit, and so will you.
