Humility to Unity

"Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves" - Phil. 2:3 (NIV)

A few weeks ago, when I was still in school for the first semester of my second year, our class tackled Dante's Inferno then Purgatorio. When I was fortunate enough to have had lunch with my professors for this class, I took the opportunity to ask them why Purgatory was structured in such a way that Dante and Virgil had to go through the terrace of the Proud. Fr. Soria said that it's because all the other sins stemmed from pride, that is you do all these other heinous things because you love yourself more than you do other people and God.

Christ, is the exact opposite.

Because he loved us all, he was willing to become human, be a servant to all and die on the cross. My favorite analogy of just how invaluable we truly are is that think of humans as ants and Christ as a human being. Upon seeing that the ants are about to face their demise, he decides to turn into an ant himself just so he could tell them of what's about to happen so that he could save them all; because he loved them. I know it seems silly but it has made the concept of our salvation just a little bit clearer. He humbled himself so that he could save us because he loves us, plain and simple.

What does that mean for us? 

I can't speak for everybody, but at least it's a reminder for myself to keep my ego in check. I mean, I may not voice my thoughts all the time, but when someone is better than me at something I truly love, in my head I've already judged them to be this entirely different I'm sure they're not. Or have plotted their demise, or something. Point is, I feel the resentment and even though I don't act on those bitter feelings, thinking about them is just as bad.

Basically, I guess what this passage is saying is that in order to be united, we need to humble ourselves and accept each other and respect each other. This is quite timely too. Especially since GCF is going through major transitions as of the moment. But, I should say that we're on our way to being a united Church once again, steps have already been made for this. The rest is up to God. :)