Service, Humility, and Bowing Down (literally)

After reading on the article about the characterisitics of eagles and how it relates to Isaiah 40:31,

I am reminded of what my ‘diko’ always say, when it comes to keeping your cool, especially at times

when the person you are having quarrel with is a family member:

 

“When you are getting full and about to spill out, stoop and bow down. That will empty you out.”

 

That is an amazing precept. Especially if you are hearing it from a drunkard…

 

Now, to the point itself.

 

Having gone through the Discipline of Service, we have learned that the most conducive discipline

to the building up of the virtue of humility is none other than the discipline of service.

1.       When you serve, you become lowly.

2.      When you serve in secret and hiddenness, it is a fatal blow to pride.

In most cases of serving, especially when it comes to serving in physical terms, you don’t assume a

position of king, but a servant. That means you are stooping and bowing down most of the time.

This is very much in contrast to a king’s proud and lofty posture; a king is most of the time in an

attitude of ‘lording it over’ his subjects. Not so with the servant. The servant serves all – even

fellow servants. Why? Because when a servant is stooping down, and bowed down, the eyes

is no longer looking across, horizontally, but is looking down, vertically, but down. The focus

is no longer on who is being served, but, in all the pureness of the act, at the service being rendered.

 

So how can a servant be hyped up, become proud and arrogant? In no means! A person can be filled up,

become proud and conceited, if he never bows down no matter what. But a servant who has assumed

the lowly position of stooping and bowing down, does not, in any moment or chance, even gather up

a trickle of pride in himself. Not a drip of arrogance is accumulated in his head and heart. Not in

any moment. So long as he continues with the servant stance. Furthermore, a servant does not

look at the master in the eyes; he looks at the master’s hands, awaiting the slightest signal or summon.

 

In the end, service ties up with humility, which is regenerative of the servant spirit and attitude.

Having chosen the bowing position, a servant is never in a position to gather pride, and even then,

in the act of serving, the servant spills out the prideful spirit, in turn, increases his humility.