I’ve been reading Emily P. Freeman’s book Simply Tuesday. Emily's thoughts on smallness have encouraged and convicted and given me a framework to reconsider my motivation for the things I pursue. While I’ve read it, though, I’ve had a sort of unsettled concern in the back of my mind. What if I’m really hoping smallness just becomes another means to bigness for me? Just another potentially important and impressive message for me to express to the world how great I am? If I really understand and experience smallness well, then maybe I can turn this into a way for people to know how great I actually am.
In the last chapter, however, Emily answers my concerns. “Do I really appreciate smallness because Christ’s is the hidden way, or do I value it because I’m imagining this small beginning will ultimately lead to greatness? (later) I sense Christ asking me to embrace small beginnings, even when they might only lead to small endings.”
My acceptance of smallness is, perhaps, a humble confession that I can’t see everything. In the light of this world, my beginnings or endings or in-betweens may look small. When I weigh my days on my own scales, I may judge my accomplishments to be unimpressive. But seen in the light of eternity, my smallness has value. It’s not that my smallness isn’t actually small—it’s that being small isn’t bad.
Humility says “I am small.”
Humility says “I don’t need to control how big people think I am.”
Humility does not have to keep up.
Humility lets me move at my own pace.
Humility lets me pick what I like—not what I think others might be impressed by me liking.
Today, Lord, I accept my smallness. I accept the small ways that you have made me. I receive with thankfulness the small gifts that bring small joy. I put down my need for more. I put down my need to control how I am perceived. Thank you that you are a big, big God.