In Disguise

     I want you to humor me for a minute. Close your eyes take a second and simply think of the following word: servant. What is the mental picture that comes into your mind? Is it a gracious prince or princess in disguise? Most of the time that is what comes into my mind; a prince or princess in disguises simply waiting to be rescued and regain their rightful place as royalty. Why does that come to my mind? I once blamed it on being a total romantic. My dad once said that I can get excited even when a leaf falls from a tree.
It’s true. I am a dreamer and romanticize everything, even servants. I have been thinking a lot about my thought process on servants lately and I will tell you why I believe God created me like this. In order for you to understand, I will have to start from the beginning.

     I am currently reading Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina. Being only one-hundred pages into a almost nine-hundred page book, it doesn’t seem like I have the right to an opinion quite yet. However, these are simply my initial thoughts pertaining to a minor area of the book—and that is the character Levin’s compassion and love toward the peasants and poor versus the wealthier Russian society.

     In a nut shell, Levin is a man that lives in the country, works with his hands, and thus realizes he is a common man. (I feel like it is necessary to add: Probably due to never having had a boyfriend, I fall in love with qualities in fictional characters… and Levin, so far, is no exception. He is humble, compassionate, innocent, intelligent… Well, I suppose I should get back to my original thoughts, because where I am going is enough to fill a novel. Anyway…) while in town, he meets with his friends, who are very wealthy distinguished individuals. Levin gets into a conversation in which his “friends” are teasing him about even giving thought to the poor and meek. Because what hope do the poor have? They are destitute, lacking education, food, clothing and title. For lack of a better word, they are losers. Anna Karenina was written in the mid-1870’s; however the culture’s views still have not changed much, even in America where “all men were created equal.”

     It is circulated throughout the world that without money you are nothing. You cannot have an education, nor play sports. Even in an interview for a job to earn money, one must look good. And in order to look good, one must have money. Of course, we give yearly to such-and-such organization simply because spiritually our culture feels justified when we do. Plus, if one tithes ten percent each pay check, he might get a few extra points in his favor when he reaches the pearly gates. So, when someone says without money you are nothing, they say it with a half-smile, half-joking tone, because we don’t want others thinking we are as coarse as all that. Nonetheless, money gets you places.

     As I have just described, our modern world and Levin’s friends that Tolstoy has created in the late 1800’s still have the same unspoken view: Money gets you places and the rich will rule the world. The meek and poor are, simply, losers. (Don’t worry; I am getting to my point.) This is the world we live in, right? Well, my King of Contradictions is the Loves of the losers.  He is like Levin in the sense that He is the defender of the weak. But my King does not just defend the meek, he does what no other can, He gives the poor a portion and inheritance of Heaven itself. He makes the servant princes and princesses and will one day rescue them from the “destitution” the world has deemed them with. He gives them honor so that they might glorify His name.

     Don’t get me wrong, I personally don’t believe that everyone is called to never own any possessions, live in the woods and beg. Nor sell themselves as slaves in some odd country floating somewhere in the seven seas, simply for the sake of being a “servant.” No, you see, I was blessed to be born into a family with a dad that works hard to provide for his family, and he has. So, I do not condemn money. However I was even more blessed to be born into a family that is very compassionate. I do not believe money is the root of all evil. But I believe wholeheartedly that the love of money is the root of all evil.

     I also believe that servitude is a heart response; laying one’s life down for his friends. Giving time, money and energy to others. Loving not for what another can do for you, but simply for what you can do for the sake of Christ. We must be imitators of Christ, because “the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve.” (Matthew 20:28)

     So those are my thoughts. God made me a romantic (among other reasons) so I could recognize that the world’s got it backwards when it comes to the rich and poor. You might call me a romantic, or a loser, or simply a girl. And I would have to respond by telling you that you are completely right. But I am not just a girly romantic loser, I am God’s loser. A princess in disguise, serving until my Heavenly Conqueror rescues me… “One day He is coming, oh glorious day.”

So let us love. Let us serve for we are more than conquerors in Him who first loved us. We are servants in the physical, but eternally, princes and princesses living in a world of abuses. Temporarily, that is. So blessed be all the lovely losers.

     “It’s not for the strong, the beautiful, the brave. Not for the ones who think they’re got it made. It’s for the poor, the broken and the meek, it’s for the ones who look a lot like you and me.”

- Jason Gray, “Blessed Be”