SURRENDER

TODAY: Remember Booker T. Washington, who for all of his accomplishments also practiced humility, often with a larger lesson in mind. Once, after arriving at a city train station, he asked the taxi driver for a ride to the auditorium. When the driver, who was white, refused, Washington replied: “All right then. Why don’t you move to the passenger’s seat, and I’ll drive you to the auditorium.”

Every once in a while you have the privilege of meeting and getting to know a truly extraordinary person – one of those people who make you feel like the most important person in the world when you’re talking with them. It’s clear that they care more about you at that moment than they do themselves.

Jean was one of those people. She was a retired professional who couldn’t quite retire and spent the last several years as a business coach. She didn’t always tell you what you wanted to hear, but that didn’t matter. It didn’t matter because you knew that her counsel or question came from her many years of experience, mixed with her keen sense of who you were and a sincere desire to help you find your way in your own way.

At the core, what made Jean who she was was her humility. In my eyes, it was her greatest gift. It gave her the kind of credibility that can’t be bought or even earned. It was gained through surrender. Whether that surrender was accomplished in an instant or in a thousand tiny steps, I do not know. I just know that it ran deep within her and shone from her often in many different ways.

In her own human way, she modeled Christ’s compassion and humility to the everyday people she touched every day. Yesterday, she left life here on this earth. Today, I marvel at the way God worked in and through her life.

What first pops into your mind when you hear the word surrender?

When you consider humbling yourself?

Is it possible that our cultural perception of what those words mean might be holding us back?

— Judy Rudat

Courtesy of The Church of the Good Shepherd United Methodist