The Key to Servanthood

“Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.” Philippians 2:5-8

Philip Yancy, an insightful Christian author, reflected in a Christianity Today article on the discrepancy between those who bask in the limelight and those who toil in seeming obscurity:

“My career as a journalist has afforded me opportunities to interview diverse people. Looking back, I can roughly divide them into two types - servants and stars. The stars include NFL football greats, movie actors, music performers, famous authors, TV personalities, and the like. These are the ones who dominate our magazines and our television programs.

I have also spent time with servants. People like Dr. Paul Brand who worked for twenty years among outcasts - leprosy patients, the poorest of the poor in rural India. Or the health workers who left high-paying jobs to serve with Mendenhall Ministries...Or relief workers in Somalia, the Sudan, Ethiopia, Bangladesh, or other such repositories of world-class suffering.

...But as I now reflect on the two groups - stars and servants - the servants clearly emerge as the favored ones, the graced ones. They work for low pay, long hours, and no applause - ‘wasting’ their talents and skills among the poor. But somehow in the process of losing their lives, they have found them. They have received ‘the peace that is not of this world.’”