Dr Albert Schweitzer was born in the late 19th century and died in 1965, he would be a good candidate for being the most intelligent person to have lived maybe in the last three hundred years. He was a doctor in three senses. He had a PHD in music, a PHD in theology and as if that wasn’t enough was a medical doctor who specialized in surgery. Definitely what we call in the UK a Teflon brain!
Now you might think with all of those qualifications that Schweitzer went on to be a top academic, maybe the head of a prestigious university, or a leading surgeon at a top teaching hospital. Actually he went to Africa and set up a hospital for some of the poorest people in the world and served as a medical missionary. (he later received the Nobel Peace Prize)
If someone as smart as that was giving out advice, you would want to sit up and listen, right?
Well Schweitzer gave some advice on how to be happy. This is what he said:
“I do not know what your destiny will be, but one thing I know, the only ones among you who will be happy are those who have sought and found how to serve”
Its no surprise that Schweitzer was a disciple of the smartest man ever to live, Jesus Christ, the one described in the New Testament as “being in very nature a servant”(Phil 2.7) . Jesus washed his disciples feet, the most menial task of a servant and then gave this advice
14 Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet. 15 I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you. 16 Very truly I tell you, no servant is greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. 17 Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them. John 13
These men were a lot smarter than me, so I am going to follow their advice and believe that serving others is the way to experience a happy and blessed life.
What about you?
Abraham's Footsteps 