It has happened to all of us and none of us like it – being ignored. Someone stands you up or is late for an appointment. You try to get involved in a group conversation but no one is listening. You feel overlooked as someone is chosen instead of you for a promotion. Somehow you […]
What do you see in this picture? How might you associate it with the title? Which way are you already thinking? Your answers to those three questions could be revealing your inner thoughts, perceptions and prejudices! Some things lurk in the alleyways of our minds that we wish did not so we keep them locked up as we do not want others to know they live in our ‘zoo’! We tend to make assessments based on limited information and on inner biases rather too quickly. If you look again, you will be able to see five water fowl that resemble adolescent ducklings but are in fact cygnets preening themselves, not fully aware that they are in process of becoming beautiful swans. Hans Christian Andersen wrote ‘The Ugly Duckling’ in 1843 – what do you remember about it?
Should these two words be so closely associated with each other let alone with donkeys? Which one of these pair looks well-named ‘Gentle’ and which one ‘Humble’?! Surely ‘Jeremiah’ and ‘Hezekiah’ would be more fitting names! Does society nowadays recognise and respect humility as an attribute – what is humility anyway? The same question could be asked of ‘gentleness’. Can you be gentle without being humble and vice versa? Why are these two things important in a Christian and is it possible to be both? So many questions need an answer to make sense of it all and these come in the person of Christ:
‘See, your king comes to you, gentle and riding on a donkey, and on a colt, the foal of a donkey’ – Matthew 21:5
