Daily Word of Grace # 220 (April 15, 2021)
In his highly acclaimed 2016 novel, A Gentleman in Moscow, Amor Towles writes about Count Alexander Rostov who in 1922 was sentenced to house arrest for the rest of his life in the Metropol hotel in Moscow. Rostov creatively and perseveringly makes the best of this and considers himself a member of a group he dubs “The Confederacy of the Humbled” which is “a close-knit brotherhood whose members travel with no outward markings, but who know each other at a glance. For having fallen suddenly from grace, those in the Confederacy share a certain perspective. Knowing beauty, influence, fame, and privilege to be borrowed rather than bestowed, they are not easily impressed. They are not quick to envy or take offense. They certainly do not scour the papers in search of their own names. They remain committed to living among their peers, but they greet adulation with caution, ambition with sympathy, and condescension with an inward smile.” Biblically speaking, Jesus was and is a fully human and fully divine member of “The Confederacy of the Humbled” as he humbled himself and became a servant, then further humbled himself in dying on the cross (Philippians 2:3-8) for a you. Moreover, willingly joining “The Confederacy of the Humbled” will always render more grace from God, because “God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble” (James 4:6).
Love and Prayers,
Dave