REFLECTIONS

Making of a Hero

Born in the south when the black race was not accepted there, Jackie Robinson possessed superior athletic skill, undying passion to use it, and unwavering courage and commitment to serve his fellow man. He was a hero in the making. It took all his talent to gain the spotlight, and all his courage and commitment to serve others. He became a hero.

Heroes. Whether a star athlete, courageous warrior, or fictional character, most of us have heroes we look up to. We may admire them for something they did, but we look up to them most for courage to conquer hardships they faced or sacrificial commitment to a cause for the benefit of someone else.

Heroes are neither rare nor common, but they are exceptional. Moses was born to an ordinary Jewish family, but events early in his life placed him as an adopted child of a royal family. But other events later stripped him of his royal status and exiled him to the desert. For 40 humbling years, God placed him there as a hero in the making preparing him to one day lead the Israelite nation out of slavery.

And can you imagine how cocky Joseph once felt as his father’s favorite son. Then God used his brothers’ jealousy to bring Joseph’s ego down a few notches. The brothers sold him into slavery, and he suffered humiliating injustices that sent him to prison. But Joseph was a hero in the making. When released from prison, he was given the position God had planned for him all along—second in command over all of Egypt.

As a zealous Pharisee, Apostle Paul set out to crush Christians as a duty to God. Then God dropped him to his knees with a blinding light until he found the peace of Jesus Christ. Paul spent three humbling years in the desert getting to know Jesus and prepare for his new calling to be a herald and a teacher to the Gentiles. He would later write to the Corinthians, “I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” (2 Corinthians 12:10)

God uses hardship to teach humility. He taught humility when he stripped Moses of a royal position and exiled him to the desert. He taught humility when he enslaved Joseph and sent him to prison. And he taught humility when he dropped Apostle Paul to his knees with a blinding light. Teaching humility is the way God goes about the making of a hero. But he’s really not making heroes. He’s making servants of God.

Jackie Robinson fought through trouble all his life. But heroism wasn’t the point of his life. “A life is not important except in the impact it has on other lives,” he wrote. That’s why we see him as a hero. But he wasn’t a hero. He was a servant of God.

And just as all those others before him, that’s what God was making all along.

You are the light of the world,

Richard +

www.reflectingthesavior.org.

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