MANY politicians in our country love talking about their humble beginnings, and since most of our country are poor, they manage to get votes doing so. I love people who have come up by their bootstraps, but often wonder whether they really come up? Have they raised themselves up in manner and culture or just financially?
There’s someone I know who owns a new Mercedes. I have seen this man when he owned nothing but a small room, and have admired the way he has come up. However, even though he has risen high in the corporate ladder, he acts petty and mean even in small things and in a fight uses the coarsest of language, which made somebody say in disgust, “You can pull a man out of the gutter, but you can’t pull the gutter out of this man?”
Many of us also have risen from small beginnings, but it is important that we not only improve our circumstances and our personalities but have a rebirth in character. Two nobles once raised a controversy as to what made a person into a gentleman, was it birth, education or was it training. They could not come to a conclusion and went to their sultan who set a date for the matter to be resolved.
The nobleman who believed that education and training was more important than birth had a well-trained cat which would bow when asked to, walk on its hind legs and even carry a cup of tea on a tray. On the appointed day, the Sultan took his seat. The noble with his cat began his argument. He then produced his cat to support his point.
The cat bowed and stood on its hind legs at the noble’s command. Then the tray with a cup was brought and the cat gracefully walked to the sultan with it. Everybody applauded. Just then, the opposing noble let a mouse out of the sack he was carrying. Throwing the tray and cup aside, the cat ran after the mouse.
Education and training failed and birth showed that the cat would always behave like a cat.Training and education was not enough, the cat needed a new nature. The same is true with us. Driving a big car, or owning a bigger house will never make us gentlemen unless there is a change within, a rebirth of nature.
The man or woman who has re-birthed or regenerated himself through God, and has changed his petty thinking, his response and his actions is a King, even if he lives in a small house or just a room. There’s no point owning a Mercedes and continuing to live in a gutter is there?
