"It is Happy to go Low"

Last week, while on vacation, Glen and I visited a favorite spot of ours, Duke's Creek Falls, in northern Georgia.  Duke's Creek Falls is a combination of two waterfalls, one from Duke's Creek and on from Davis Creek.  The fall from Duke's creek is a waterfall cascading down a wide expanse of exposed rocks.  The other flows from Davis Creek and plummets 150 feet to join Duke's Creek.

I find great pleasure standing on the observation deck and watching the water fall to the creek.  The sight of the continuously falling water, the sound of the water crashing on the rocks and the feel of the water spray on my face all lend themselves to a wonderful sensory experience.

But these waterfalls teach a great lesson as well.  Water always seeks the lowest point.  Rivers  flow to the ocean.  From great mighty mountains, tiny creeks become great rivers and steadily flow low.

Decades ago when reading the allegorical novel, "Hind's Feet on High Places" by Hannah Hurnard, I was struck by the "Water Song".  It was the song the water sang as it always sought the lowest place.  I especially loved this portion:

Come, oh come! let us away--

Lower, lower every day, 

Oh, what joy it is to race

Down to find the lowest place. 

This the dearest law we know --

 "It is happy to go low."

"It is happy to go low."  This great lesson is found over and over in Scripture.  This world tells us, screams at us, to find the highest place, that we deserve it.  It tells us to place ourselves above all others and find a high place upon which to look down upon everyone else.  Perhaps the world doesn't use these exact words, but the attitude is surely there.  But the Scriptures give us a completely different course, that of the water.

"Better it is to be of an humble spirit with the lowly, than to divide the spoil with the proud." Proverbs 16:19.

"Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and He shall lift you up."  James 4:10

"Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than ourselves." Philippians 2:3

As much as the pounding waterfall is a beauty to behold, how much more the beautiful heart of one who chooses to seek the lowest point in life.  This choice points to the only Person who had a genuine right to be proud, but was not. It points to the One who willingly humbled Himself that He could one day lift us up.

"Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus:  Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God:  But made Himself of no reputation, and took upon Him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men:  And being found in fashion as a man, He humbled Himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.  Wherefore God also hat highly exalted Him, and given Him a name which is above every name:  That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of the Father."

Philippians 2:5-11

It is happy to go low, indeed.