"The God Pause Daily Devotional" from The Luther Seminary in Saint Paul, Minnesota, United States for Monday, 22 August 2016 with Scripture: Proverbs 25:6-7

"The God Pause Daily Devotional" from The Luther Seminary in Saint Paul, Minnesota, United States for Monday, 22 August 2016
with Scripture: Proverbs 25:6-7

Proverbs 25:6 Don’t put yourself forward in the king’s presence;
    don’t take a place among the great.
7 For it is better to be told, “Come up here,”
    than be degraded in the presence of a nobleman.
What your eyes have seen,[Complete Jewish Bible]
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The wisdom of this proverb begins to prepare us for the radical reversals of Jesus. Jesus lives not by power over, but by power beneath. Jesus lives by the power of trusting and serving. This reading helped me know this morning that it may be important--even revelatory--to stop and pull the weeds sprouting in the chapel landscaping before I scurried to all the "higher" things that needed doing. It wasn't that I expected the president to come by and say, "Oh, Paul, come to my office for iced tea!" It was rather that this word for this week reminds us to look for God--and beauty and life--beneath us instead of over us. Powerful people in our world clamor for position and pull one another down like kids playing "king of the mountain." The Bible instead focuses our view of power downward. Today the wisdom of proverbs prepares us for all Jesus will teach about places beneath: seeds and children, sweeping corners for lost things and washing feet.
God, surprise us today with your power below us. Amen.
Paul Rohde, '82
Campus Pastor, Augustana University, Sioux Falls, S.D. 
Proverbs 25:6 Do not put yourself forward in the king's presence or stand in the place of the great;
7 for it is better to be told, "Come up here," than to be put lower in the presence of a noble.[New Revised Standard Version
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