The Common Touch

There was a change that took place in me when I went to college. I became a bit of a snob. I would go back home and behold the ways of the people that I grew up among and I would marvel at just how much better than them I had become.

Of course, I was really the same person. I had been exposed to some things they most likely hadn't experienced, but in the grand scheme, I was still the same person. So why, I ask, did I consider myself better than them? Well, the answer isn't that complicated.

We can all fall victim to this temptation--to elevate ourselves above those around us for one reason or another. Anything we have, anything we know, anything we are that differentiates us from someone else can be twisted by pride to make us think ourselves better than them. Social status or money can do it. Knowledge can also corrupt attitudes as powerfully as money. Give someone a book on systematic theology and you may have created a monster. Study philosophy for a year or two and you just might well find yourself in a state of arrogance from which you can't recover. All of these things must be tempered with humility. Looking at our greatest accomplishments, we will always find ourselves in the shadow of someone even greater who has accomplished more and has done better. And the greatest of men in the light of his highest accomplishments still stands in the shadow of a God who is not impressed.

Perspective. We need perspective. John Bradford, the great English reformer and martyr, was known to have said, "There, but for the grace of God, goes John Bradford." So what is it that really separates us from this person to whom we consider ourselves superior? We usually think it is something we have done--something we have accomplished. Well, if it indeed was us that has accomplished this thing, we might well indeed be superior to this person in that exact way. But don't be fooled. You did nothing on your own.

So I strive to maintain the common touch. I tell myself that we are, under God, all the same. I have limited success in this struggle because I still battle a voice which tells me I'm better than some people. I'd rather be listening to another voice. That voice told me: "As I have loved you, so you must love one another."