Coming off Your High Horse

Bible Reading: Hebrews 11:24-27

Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle, and you will find rest for your souls.   Matthew 11:29

DURING THE AMERICAN War for Independence, a group of soldiers had been assigned to cut down some trees to make a bridge across a creek. The work was very hard, and the men were making slow progress. As they grunted and sweated, a man rode up on a horse and looked over the scene.

The man on the horse spoke to one of the soldiers, who was not working but was telling the others what they should do. “You don’t have enough men, do you?” the man on the horse asked.

“No,” said the man who had been giving orders.

“Why don’t you lend a hand yourself?” the man on the horse asked.

“Me?” the soldier answered in a shocked tone. “Why, sir, I am a corporal!”

“Ah,” said the man on the horse, as if the soldier’s rank explained everything. He got off his horse and helped the men. When the trees were all cut down and the bridge was built, he got back on his horse and saluted the corporal.

“The next time there’s work to be done and you don’t have enough men to do it, just call for your commander in chief, and I will come again,” he said. The man on the horse was General George Washington.

That story, which is one of many great stories found in William Bennett’s book The Moral Compass, shows the greatness of George Washington. Although he was a general and the commander in chief of all the American armies in the Revolutionary War (and later the first president), he humbled himself to do the work a corporal wouldn’t do!

If that story shows the greatness of George Washington, how much greater is our Lord, Jesus Christ! Although he was God and the one through whom everything in the world was created, he humbled himself and came to earth to live a sinless life and die a horrible death—for all of us!

The example of Jesus reminds us that humility is good and right, because the Almighty God humbled himself for us. If God himself was not “too proud to be humble,” we should let him teach us, as today’s Bible reading says, to be “humble and gentle” (Matthew 11:29).

REFLECT: How do you think that army corporal felt when he realized he had been too proud to work beside General George Washington? What do you think Jesus meant when he said, “Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle”? How can you let Jesus teach you to be humble and gentle today?

PRAY: “Jesus, thank you for humbling yourself and becoming a man so that you could die for my sins. Please teach me today to be humble and gentle toward everyone I meet.”