Recently, someone in my Toastmasters club read the poem “If” by Rudyard Kipling. It is as follows:
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!
As the poem was read, the attributes started making me think of Jesus. I could even almost imagine God talking to Jesus before He came to earth to be born to Mary.
Jesus was definitely a “man”. Jesus was the Son of Man. As Jesus faced His challenges as a “man” He stayed close to God in His heart and in prayer. In an even fuller sense, Jesus kept the balance this poem often refers to. He was God and man. Full of Grace and Truth. Both the just and the justifier. He dwelled in Heaven but came to earth to die for us sinners.
With Jesus’ help, we can have our lives transformed and even if we do not inherit the earth, we get something better- life in eternity with God when we trust in Jesus. Thank you Jesus!