Looking down from the mountain [part 1 of 4]

When I lived in Virginia, we often went hiking on the Peaks of Otter. There was a trail you could take up Sharp Top, the more commonly hiked mountain. It was really nice. There is one interesting thing that I remember, though. When you looked over at Flat Top, the other mountain, it looked lower than you.

​However, it was actually taller

It’s funny how the view from our side is so distorted. It seems we are always higher than the others. We often think that we’ve got it figured out, and the other people we know are still climbing the mountain.

​We think we have the right amount of knowledge. We know pi is 3.14. People who think pi is 3 are ignorant, and those (like the author) who know pi has infinite digits, and that the first 15 of them are 3.14159265358979, are total nerds with no life. We inwardly scoff at those who don’t know who Joshua was (in the Bible), yet we also scoff at those (like the author) who know that Samuel’s dad was named Elkanah, his wife - Peninnah, and Samuel’s mother - Hannah.

We think we have the perfect amount of knowledge. Those who know less are ignorant; those who know more are geeks and nerds with no life. We think we have achieved Aristotle’s Golden Mean.

But really, we don’t have the right amount, nor should we look down on those with a differing amount. God knows everything, does that make him a Nerd? NO! A baby is born with no knowledge, does that make him or her worthless? NO!

All of us should be learning more. All of us should grow. None of us have achieved the perfect amount of anything. And if someone knows less than us, we should not look down on them, we should use our knowledge to help them learn. And if we are going to compare ourselves, we should compare ourselves to Christ.

Romans 12:3 says, “For I say, through the grace given unto me, to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think; but to think soberly, according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith.” We should not think of ourselves too highly, but remember that God gives to each believer what they need for Him to use them.