Feeling Small
It’s so easy for us to forget how small we are. We have our plans, we have our routines. We have our things that make us feel safe and in control. It’s not always a conscious effort to pine for comfort or luxury, but it is so ingrained in our culture that it has become a subconscious drive.
Of course it is natural to want to provide for your family. Of course it is natural to think about one’s needs. But somewhere along the way, wants can become blurred with needs, and it becomes hard to tell the difference. And maybe at some point you can provide for all of your needs AND wants, making you feel even more secure. But there’s a danger in that, which is forgetting about God in the process.
It’s easy to cry out to God when things are going wrong. It’s easy to pray and focus on Him when your loved one is sick. Whenever we feel helpless, that is when we are most dependent on God. It makes sense, then, that the opposite becomes true. Whenever we feel in control, we are the least dependent on God.
It is so hard, but ultimately so much better, to constantly humble yourself before God. To recognize that at any moment, things can change; at any moment, that feeling of control can be taken away. This starts with pride and thinking highly of oneself. Just as Jesus explains in the parable about being invited to a wedding feast (Luke 14:7-11), if you take for yourself a position of honor, you will be humiliated. But if you take for yourself a humble place, you will be honored by the host.
Sometimes hardships come; that’s part of life. Bad things happen to good people. But wouldn’t it be easier to make an effort to stay closer to the baseline? The more you build yourself up, the harder the crash will be. By staying low and humble, a hardship won’t seem so bad. I think this is why Solomon asks the Lord to give him neither poverty nor riches, but only his daily bread. ”Otherwise, I may have too much and disown you and say ‘Who is the Lord?’” (Proverbs 30:7-9)
It’s been seen that “pride goeth before a fall”, and most people won’t dispute that statement. But how many of us make a conscious effort to pine for humility and simplicity? What if we reject our culture’s mantra that more luxury is the way to happiness? Why not simplify our lives so that instead of focusing on everything else, there is little around to distract from a focus on God?
I don’t know what it is or will be that makes you feel small. It could be financial difficulties, it could be family drama. It could be co-workers or a natural disaster. But rather than waiting to find out, why not think about what makes you feel big? If you can identify what makes you feel like you are in control, what makes you trust in yourself more than God, then you can make an effort to dismantle that pride. Because if you start tearing down that tower instead of continuing to build it up, the inevitable fall won’t be so bad, because you were already heading in that direction. You can hike down a mountain or fall down it: one way is swift, unexpected, and painful; the other way is slow, intentional, and ironically, much less humiliating.
Rather than being “put in my place” as it were, I would much rather have Jesus invite me to a higher level. I was not, am not, and never will be in control. This isn’t about giving up something you’ve worked hard to earn; it’s about acknowledging that it was never yours in the first place.
