Heart Swagger's Hope

He had a "humble" swagger about him as he moved from important gathering to important gathering.

An up-and-comer if anyone ever was, he caught the attention of the other leaders. He was the type of man that other men wanted to follow since he seemed to have it all together. They wanted to hitch their wagon to his, and may have even fought and pushed each other over the chance to be a part of his tribe.

The best school bragged that the diploma in his office had its name scripted on it. The best professors announced with pride that he was their student. His single-minded focus and devotion was intimidating to many; unimitatable by all. (Is that a word?)

One could trace his family back to the beginnings of their nation. There was a long history of notable men and women who were in his bloodline and as the family gathered together on holy days they reminded each other at how fortunate they were to be part of their family- and not another.

As he passed people on the streets, they recognized him, but most did not approach him. They knew he was special, gifted, set apart...different from them. "Chosen" maybe. It was not his greatness alone that they hid from as much as they hid their own "ungreatness."

The swagger was "humble," but it was still "swagger." Everything on the outside of the man was everything that people respected. And more than anyone who passed him or knew him, he honored himself. He revered himself more than any other person revered him. No praise of any other man could compare with how he praised himself.

And that is the type of praise that slowly destroys a man from the inside out.

Sadly, most could not see the character cancer that was transforming him into the type of monster that the world would love to revere.

All except Jesus. He could see through the educational prowess, the perceived success, the almost universal respect. He could see the deep death growing within the man...death that was beginning to spill out to the people who Jesus called his own.

But Jesus didn't treat Paul the way Paul was treating him. Jesus didn't see Paul's heart swagger as a wall that He could not breech. On the contrary, Jesus saw the deadness and arrogance of Paul and wanted to show Paul that He what matters most is not Paul's own ability to out perform and to over produce, but Jesus ability to make swaggering monsters into humble givers.

I have realized that you don't have to be a high performer to be a swaggering monster. The swaggering heart is something we all carry and just needs to be turned on by "worldy" success or even the sulking pride of "unsuccess." One way or another, we all swagger. Some people just do it with more pizazz.

Jesus reoriented the world of a man who "owned" the world to tell us swaggerers that there is hope. Here is hope for hard-hearted Pharisees. Jesus doesn't just pursue the monetarily poor and the needy, but those who have everything they need but are poor and needy swagger monsters.

There is hope for a man like me who thinks way more highly and lowly of himself than he should. Grace came to the most unlikely of receivers in Paul to prove to the world that there is no heart too far gone, too proud, or too swaggering.