I had a humbling moment this week.
What had happened was this skill that I thought I was good at was revealed to be not very good at all anymore. The skills fell victim to the old adage of “if you’re not growing, you’re dying.”
It was…quite a humbling moment.
It was a humbling moment for someone who relied so much on talent and abilities to get by. Now in my late 20’s, the great talents and gifts God allowed me to have don’t seem so impressive anymore.
I suppose this is a sovereign allowance.
And I suppose this is why God doesn’t use many teens and 20 year olds very often in very significant ways. We are often too gifted and too prideful to recognize our limitations, to recognize our humanness, and to recognize our great need for God despite our self-perceived greatness.
What would older rusty Phil say to younger talented Phil?
I’m not sure. It might be something like: “It’s okay Phil, you’re not that great. The faster you learn that, the faster you’ll enjoy the blessings of humility.”
Age and its certain humility….it’s bound to happen to all of us. Yet as I look at the aging crowd around me, I realize some hold very dearly to the glory and invincibility of youth. With every part of me, the temptation woos me as well.
But not this week.
I am learning today to embrace the temporality of my weak frame, this sickly degrading body I operate in. I am learning that despite all our talent and glory, we are just not that great, and that’s okay. And it forces me to entrust my life no longer on my greatness but into the hands of the living God, as it should have been all along.
And I suppose the fate of those who do such do quite well. And consolation will be the God who promises this:
Even to your old age and gray hairs I am he, I am he who will sustain you. I have made you and I will carry you; I will sustain you and I will rescue you. Isa 46:4