small

Being appropriately small was the wisdom passed on to me from John Ortberg (and likely to him from Dallas Willard). I have been thinking about the idea of being appropriately small for a few years. It has always been for me just 'good advice'--what i 'ought' to do. But recently I realized that being appropriately small is hard for insecure people like me. We compensate by trying to be inappropriately big. For some people that looks like fame and flash. For me that has only been a fantasy--thank God! I don't know if I have what it takes to handle that (who does?). Inappropriate bigness for me has usually looked more like a small fish in a smaller pond (or puddle). Some safety, some taste of respect, but still that nagging insecurity (all lies, of course) telling me that I'm a fake--not as smart as everybody thinks, not as kind as everybody assumes, not as selfless as some may consider me to be.

What I've been learning is that being appropriately small has to do with more than humility and not pretending to be more than you are. It also has to do with responsibility to do what you are asked/called to do with what you are--whether it is seemingly insignificant or flashy. Stop worrying about what you aren't, and invest your energies into what you are. Stop pumping energy into living up to imagined expectations and delusions of grandeur, accept what you have been given and live responsibly with that.

in the parable of the talents, the guy with five talents didn't sit there pretending he had ten, dreaming about what he'd do with ten talents. He got to work with what he was given. In the end, his responsibility was rewarded with greater responsibility.