How To Be Great
“A great man is always willing to be little.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
Whenever I see pictures of rough-and-tumble, tattooed men looking like they should be in motorcycle gangs but, instead, are in princess dresses sitting next to their little girl at the play table being served fake tea, I think to myself, “Now, there’s a dad.”
Yes. There is a person who does not worry about what others would think. There is a person who does not care that his little girl dressed him in something far from macho. There, instead, is a person who loves his little girl so much that he is willing to play dress up and play house because that is what will make his child happy.
How much of our lives do we spend attempting to inflate ourselves? How much time do we spend telling others how important we have become? How much time do we spend putting others down in a vain attempt to prove our own superiority? Is this the kind of people God calls us to be?
Emerson reminds us of a very basic, simple truth: “A great man is always willing to be little.” If we are secure about ourselves, we do not have to prove superiority, we do not have to inflate ourselves, we do not have to denigrate others. As a matter of fact, when we do those things, we prove that we are insecure.
There is nothing wrong with being little. There is nothing wrong with being a servant. There is nothing wrong with being humble. There is, instead, a great strength that can be derived therein. Jesus came to the world about as little as you can get. He was born of a simple girl in a stable and laid in a manger. He set aside all the trappings of a king and was born a tiny, fragile child.
Throughout His entire ministry, Jesus called His followers to humility, faith, and trust. He reminded them that they had to be servant first. He didn’t just say it, He lived it. I don’t think any of us would say that Jesus was weak. He was the strongest person we could ever know. Yet, He was willing to be little in order to be closer to us than we could ever have imagined.
Be secure in the fact that you are a humble servant of God. If the world decides to call you weak for that, so be it. God knows who and what you are and that is all that matters in the final analysis.
FAITH ACTION: Do what you can to be a humble servant today.