Would I rather be a hammer than a nail, a sparrow than a snail?
God chooses to make nails and snails out of his children…
He chooses us to be trodden upon, rather than to rule and tread on others.
For now, he prefers us to be victims of the evil ones, rather than to rule over them with a heavy hand! For now!
He wants us to be sheep rather than wolves, poor rather than rich, crying rather than laughing, …
Jesus said so in his sermon on the mount, and his apostles wrote this in all of their letters.
Let me read to you what Jesus said when he first started teaching:
It is recorded in
Matthew chapter 5 and Luke chapter 6
Before I read it to you, I need to tell you that whenever I quote the Bible, my father and I scrutinize carefully the passages of the Bible in the original Greek text, for accuracy, and then we paraphrase them, (sometimes liberally), in our own words so that its meaning is brought out clearly to you.
So, Jesus said in his sermon on the mount in
(Luke 6: 20-26)
“Consider yourselves blessed by God when you end up in this world poor and hungry… crying endlessly, hated and despised and rejected by everyone.
Keep on clinging faithfully to his ways and teachings, and God will pay you back generously in heaven for it.”
That is what Jesus said!
Why, we ask? What is so good about suffering in poverty and sorrows?
The answer, that we often do not want to hear is this:
It is because sorrows and sufferings are an integral part of a godly life!
God uses them to test us and to help us become better people, more like Jesus!
“We, children of God, have to experience many sorrows in order to enter the Kingdom of God”,
wrote the apostle Paul in Acts 14: 22
Going back to what Jesus said in his sermon on the mount, he said:
“Do not consider yourselves blessed by God when you become rich, when you are happy and satisfied with your life, living it up, and laughing your way through it.
People will envy you and admire you, but in reality, you are not blessed by God, because you will have to taste the other side of the coin one day, after you depart from this life: tears, sorrows and sufferings while being humbled by God, in the after life.
It is only fair…We all need to experience good times and bad times! That is what Jesus wanted to convey to us when he told us what happened to the rich man and Lazarus, the beggar … Read it yourself in Luke 16: 19-31.
Jesus was against riches!
Why, we ask? What is wrong with being rich?
Doesn’t each one of us want (and strive) to be so?
The answer is subtle, and again we do not really want to hear it:
It is because, when we indulge in living happily and comfortably in this world, we prove ourselves to be very self-centered and un-loving, since there are so many of our brothers and sisters, that we are supposed to love, who live in misery, and badly need our help!
We prove ourselves to be very self-centered and un-loving…
Such people will definitely not be allowed to enter God’s dwelling place.
There is nothing wrong with being rich!
What is wrong is to close ourselves in a happy and blessed “bubble” when there are so many good people outside who are in need of our substantial help.
We need to share what we have with theirs!
We cannot be selfishly enjoying this life with our riches and blessings, and be at the same time good and pleasing to God! No!
Still on this subject, Jesus said, in another difficult to understand passage that:
“The wages given for a day’s work are very unjustly and un-fairly distributed in society, and those who earn much in this world for their work should help those who earn little for their hard work!
If they do this, they will have many grateful friends in this world and in eternity…”
This is what Jesus said in Luke 16: 9 (highly paraphrased, I admit, but correct).
Do we get the picture now?
We all consider riches (and the happiness it brings) as a blessing of God to those who possess them.
But, on the contrary, they are a curse, a curse in disguise; Same as beauty and success…
And that is because riches, beauty and achievement create pride, and excesses in the lives of those who possess them, and bring with them many temptations that we would better be without…
So, no! We should not choose to be a hammer rather than a nail.
Rather choose to be a nail, a lamb that does not harm others and is good!