To be Human as Jesus is Human.

Was reading today about Jesus during his final preparations for his ministry. It's interesting to note how Jesus chose to be baptized even though he knew he was not in the same spiritual state as the others who came to receive the baptism of John. This radical solidarity with sinful human beings, instead of an assertion of his own spiritual superiority is what leads to the public, audible, and visible anointing of the Spirit. Yet even after this, Jesus doesn't decide to play up this great blessing. Instead he chooses to go deeper into the desert, separating himself from the possible adulation of the crowds, perhaps to contemplate on the full import of what this anointing means. He meets the devil 3 times out here, according to the story, and these encounters with Satan, these temptations, seem to have been  about whether to live like a human being as a servant of humans, trusting in the Father in the same way that he hoped his fellows would do, or to use his extraordinary power to live a superhuman life of self reliance, which being God he was surely entitled to do. Jesus chooses to live that life of uncertain, but faithful, service to God and man, throwing off the prerogatives of divinity to enter into deep solidarity with us and to be an example for us. One of the great questions that I have in my life is what to do about my future? I'm on the cusp of making a decision to be a social worker, something that I could be good at, if I were willing to be vulnerable, work hard, and live a life of service. I hope to pursue the ministry as well and to live it the same way. The problem is that I'm not sure how secure such a system will be for myself. I've lived so long barely getting by, cut of from others and my dreams, it's hard now that I'm at the cusp of escaping this situation to imagine living a life of solidarity and sacrifice and vulnerability for God and others. It's hard for me to accept how deeply I've changed as a person since dropping out of college 7 years ago. Especially in the negative ways, despite some good faith efforts not to. To become a better, more loving, wiser, more mature version of who I was at my best, means that I have to make myself more dependent then I've been in a while on God and on a wider community. But I have a great example in Jesus who,
"being in very nature^[a] God,
    did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
⁷ rather, he made himself nothing
    by taking the very nature^[b] of a servant,
    being made in human likeness.

And being found in appearance as a man,
    he humbled himself
    by becoming obedient to death—
        even death on a cross!"
(Phillipians 2:6-8)

I hope to remember this.