The Rewards of Humility 1 Peter 5:5-7:

1 Peter 5:5-7: Peter knew about paradigm shifts. Did he ever! He knew about brashness and conceit, and he knew about pride going before a fall, and he knew about humbling himself. Peter could have taught Judas a thing or two, if Judas had been disposed to learn. On the night they both betrayed their Lord, Judas gave up. Peter flung himself headlong on the ground where Jesus had humbled himself, and did likewise. After that, he learned to feed lambs.

Peter’s letters to the church are powerful examples of the fine art of humble leadership. At the end of the first one, in 1 Peter 5:5, 6a we already read one of his exhortations to humility. Now let’s read the rewards, in verses 6 and 7. “Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you at the proper time, casting all your anxiety on Him, because He cares for you.”

Now, at first, this may seem yet another repetition of what is apparently one of the guiding principles of God’s New World Order; nice guys and gals will finish first!

“At the proper time” indicates that sometimes there are rewards right here and now, such as the immediate uplift of sharing giggles with a child, and sometimes we have to wait for blessings. And one blessing in particular, we know we have to keep waiting for. Peter may be speaking, at least

in part, of the indescribable uplift we’ll receive when Jesus comes back for us. Then, the humble will really be exalted, to their own amazement, because truly humble people have learned to know themselves very well. They know they are in God’s kingdom at all entirely because of His grace, and not because they played the humble game best. That’s when the crown-tossing and the falling on faces and the crying will begin. Or continue. It may take a while for God to dry every tear. . .

But the next verse is a surprise. We’ve all heard it a million times—“Casting all your cares on Him, for He cares for you,” is probably the most familiar rendition. Have we realized that beloved verse was in this context? It’s part of the same sentence! “Humble yourselves under that mighty, tender hand, and cast your anxieties and worries on Him, knowing He’ll lift you up.” He’ll lift us up in His hand the minute we do that, but we might have to wait for uplifting in the eyes of others. That’s OK. We won’t mind what anyone else thinks of us if we can learn to live our lives under that hand, like a sleeping baby.