Tag: washing feet

You Will Understand

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
    neither are your ways my ways,”
declares the Lord.
“As the heavens are higher than the earth,
    so are my ways higher than your ways
    and my thoughts than your thoughts.

Isaiah 55:8-9

I was wrestling with God in prayer one morning. Some things weren’t happening that I wanted to happen. I was frustrated that housing in Kansas City wasn’t lining up a little easier. I was frustrated that better houses weren’t opening up in our target areas. I was frustrated that it felt like we’d have to move from an awesome house to an average house.

I let God know about it. I kept saying, “God, I don’t understand what you’re doing. What are you doing here, God? I don’t understand what you’re doing.” This complaint-prayer was the main refrain of the morning. 

Then, I loaded the kids into the car to drive up to the baseball tournament in Pennsylvania that my oldest was playing in. A few minutes into the drive, the SiriusXM radio DJ, Ashley Till, mentioned that she picks a scripture verse every morning and takes it with her throughout the day. She shared with her listeners that her verse for that day was John 13:7 where Jesus says to His disciples, “You do not realize now what I am doing, but later you will understand.” Read that again. I was stunned. 

Sometimes God takes a long time to answer prayers. Sometimes He answers within the hour. This was the latter. She quoted a verse that directly answered the question I had been asking God that morning. And it came within minutes of getting in the car. Thank you, Jesus!

God heard my complaining and answered directly, “You do not realize now what I am doing, but later you will understand.” This verse named my situation perfectly and then offered a future promise of understanding. Later you will understand. This is one of those verses that asks us to trust even when we don’t understand. Maybe this is a verse for you today. 

The original context of this verse is when Jesus washed the disciples feet the night before His crucifixion. They didn’t understand what He was doing. They felt confused and awkward. The Messiah wasn’t supposed to be washing feet.

The disciples were looking for understanding based on their past learning and experience. Jesus was clueing them in on the fact that God’s understanding doesn’t always come from the past but often comes from the future. Jesus’s act of washing their feet in that moment would only be understood based on what was about to happen (His death and resurrection) not based on the disciples’ previous understanding. 

Isn’t that interesting?

God often does things that we won’t understand because they are rooted in the future, not the past. We search our previous understanding and experience for some kind of understanding, but sometimes it can’t be found in our past. Often, we will only understand what God is doing right now once we have stepped into the future that God is already in.

God knows that right now we do not realize what He is doing, but He’s not troubled by that. In the present moment, pregnant with confusion and misunderstanding, we have to trust. Yet, we are given a promise that eventually, when we see what God sees from His future vantage point, we will understand. Maybe that future is 5 years from now. Maybe that future is eternity. But the promise still stands. One day, we will understand. And that is a truth we can hold on to today.

Washing Feet

It was just before the Passover Festival. Jesus knew that the hour had come for him to leave this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.

The evening meal was in progress, and the devil had already prompted Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot, to betray Jesus. Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under his power, and that he had come from God and was returning to God; so he got up from the meal, took off his outer clothing, and wrapped a towel around his waist. After that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples’ feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around him.

John 13:1-5

Jesus’s response to the knowledge that the Father had put all things under his power was to take the posture of a house servant and wash the disciples’ feet. In our culture, power often leads people to exalt themselves or to being exalted by others. Yet, with the knowledge of His supreme power at the forefront of this mind, Jesus goes low.

Jesus models for us a different kind of leadership. Jesus described this kind of Kingdom leadership when He taught the disciples, “whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many“(Mark 10:43-45).

This kind of leadership can only happen when we are secure in who we are. If we don’t know who we are in Christ, if we aren’t aware of the power and authority given to us as children of God, we’ll never be able to go this low. We’ll still be striving to prove ourselves. Or, we’ll be tempted to fight for our “rights.” Only when we see the fullness of our inheritance in Christ can we be strong enough and secure enough to wash the feet of those around us.

We can give ourselves way if we know there is always more in the Kingdom. When we posture ourselves to be continually receiving from the Lord, we can continually give things away. We can give love because we are loved. We can give grace because we daily live in a waterfall of grace. We can give away our resources knowing that God always has more for us. We can go low because we trust that it is the Father who lifts us up.

You see, it wasn’t that Jesus had to try to forget that “the Father had put all things under his power.” He didn’t have to try to put His own power out of His mind in order to be a servant. He wasn’t trying to be less than He was in order to achieve humility. It was the opposite. It was Jesus’s awareness of His immense power that allowed Him to take the low place and wash His disciples’ feet. It wasn’t a self-deprecating, false humility. It was real, authentic humility.

It was love.