“I was never so humiliated in my entire life!” Have we not all said that or something similar to it in the past? The fact that embarrassment is not an uncommon experience for us can be seen by recalling the multitude of phrases we use to describe it – we speak of being mortified, confused, nonplussed, humbled, crestfallen – of having to eat humble pie, of looking foolish, and feeling small.
There is a measure of comfort in being reminded that even the best and smartest people suffer from the humiliations of life – even the Apostle Paul. Compelled to defend himself against the cruel criticism of men who should have been his friends, he tells us of the things he endured as an ambassador for Christ. At Corinth on one occasion, he was savagely attacked. His credentials as an accredited apostle were challenged.
Beaten, stoned, shipwrecked, imprisoned, faced with starvation, thirst, and privation, burdened with the responsibility for new and struggling churches, he said, “If I must boast, I will boast of the things that show my weakness” (2 Corinthians 11:30). In Damascus the governor had his troops try to arrest him. He was let down through a window in a basket down the city wall and escaped. It was Paul’s first experience of being humiliated. Perhaps some of his enemies had sneered at the undignified way he arranged for his escape.
Imagine the feelings of this able ambassador of the King of Kings escaping in such a humiliating way. Paul had first come to Damascus as a well-known representative of the Pharisaic party. He was the product of the best schools, armed with authority and conscious of his gifts. Then, one week after he arrived he had to be smuggled out of town at night by being let down through a window and over the wall to save his skin.
Have you ever been humiliated in any way? You lost a promotion. You were demoted in rank. You found yourself in the middle of an emotional crisis. You had an injury that left you with a physical handicap or disfigurement. How did you handle it? You may at the present time, comparatively speaking, need to escape over a wall in a basket as Paul did. There are basically two ways we can handle life’s humiliations:
- We could let them embitter us. We could remain resentful. One of the familiar names in English literature is Lord Byron. He entered life lame, and it was to him humiliating. Self-pity, moral excesses, and bitterness were the ineffective weapons he employed to deal with it. When Paul wrote his most tender letter – the Epistle to the Philippians – he said something immeasurably finer, “I have learned how to be abased [or, in need]… I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation” (Philippians 4:12-13). Apparently, Lord Byron had not learned this.
- We could use them to make us more useful. History is full of instances when people turned humiliations into useful instruments. For example, years ago in a Midwestern orphanage there was a 10-year-old girl, a hunchback, sickly, ill-tempered and hard to look at, called Mercy Goodfaith. One day a lady came to the orphanage and told the director that she wanted to adopt a child nobody else would take. Mercy Goodfaith was brought in with her twisted body, scowling face and embittered eyes. The lady adopted Mercy, took her home, and tried to help her overcome her humiliation. Did she succeed? Thirty-five years later an official investigator inspected the county orphan’s home and reported it to be a model of cleanliness and happiness. One girl played the organ and the other girls sang. On the director’s lap were two of the smallest children. Four others were on the arms of her chair. The children adored her. Her name was Mercy Goodfaith.
To learn how to be in need is to learn to walk humbly with God. Paul’s escape from his enemies in Damascus by being let down the outside wall in a basket shows us that God is able to help us overcome our humiliations so that we can continue serving Him in an effective way.
The Paper Pulpit 
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