I’ve read your mind: I know exactly what you want. What, you don’t believe me? I’ll tell you.
You secretly want to be perceived as foolish, small, and weak. Oh, you can try to hide it all you want, but I know how much you want to be mocked, derided, brought low, and despised. Yes, you scoff at those who want to be well-liked, powerful, influential, and wise. The fools!
“A promotion?” you may ask derisively. “No, I’d much rather stamp buttons at the button stamping factory until I die uninsured and alone from button related injuries.”
You may have thought you were special, but you’re no different from the rest of us: your deepest aspiration in life is to be as unimportant and insignificant as possible, to never change a single thing, and to one day die completely forgotten, if indeed anybody ever knew you at all.
How am I doing so far? I can only assume I’m totally nailing it, right?
Despite my well-earned confidence, this is, of course, completely ridiculous. None of us, even the most earnestly humble, could actually say any of that stuff and mean it. And I’m not sure any of us should. We don’t want to be smaller, and we don’t aspire to be seen as lesser, much less weak or foolish. The reality is that all of us want exactly the opposite. We would all like to be stronger, wiser, greater, better liked, more influential, more desirable, and more visible. We want to be bigger. We’d like to be more capable.
And we can aspire to those things for genuinely good ends. We may want to be stronger and wiser so that we can have a greater impact as we serve God and our communities. We can aspire to greatness, capability, and influence because doing so gives us more reach as we try to spread the gospel and build up our communities in love. Knowing that we are living witnesses to the testimony of the gospel of Christ, of course we would want to be well liked, winsome, and visible.
The “twist” of this post is not to tell you that any of those things are bad. They are all good! I sure hope so, anyways. For crying out loud, I’m building a writing platform, and I very much want it to succeed – and while I can be an astonishing hypocrite on many occasions, I don’t think this is one of them. There are plenty of good reasons to desire and aspire for the more obviously positive qualities mentioned rather than those that seem far more like hindrances.
But what fascinates me is how scripture doesn’t actually treat the former list as hindrances at all. In fact, when you read the story of God’s people, you begin to see how he uses nobody except for foolish, small, weak people. And when you read Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, you can especially see a totally different list begin to emerge.
Because what we see as weaknesses to overcome, God sees as qualifications.
“For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong.”
1st Corinthians 1:26-27
I’ve spent much of the last two weeks frustrated by feelings of my own incapability. It doesn’t really matter what it is – even the simplest things the last few weeks have just felt overwhelming and too big for me to handle. I’m constantly bombarded with choices, and it feels like I only ever screw those choices up. Looking back, I have a trail of regrets to make Hansel and Gretel proud. It’s just too much. I am weak. I am small. I am foolish. It feels painfully obvious. Much like the church in Corinth, I’m just not the guy I wish I was. There are so many ways I let myself down every single day, and the days don’t stop coming.
And amidst all those choices, it’s easy for me to feel like I’m not just letting myself down, but God. Because when I’m not pursuing my highest calling as a writer, or failing to adequately optimize my financial future, or because another Saturday went by where I basically didn’t get off the couch, I just know that God isn’t able to use me. Because I didn’t live up to my standards, God is disappointed in me. And because I failed to be disciplined, God has no choice but to move on to the next guy. And that dude is probably way better looking too. With abs.
Yes, I’m aware of how ridiculous my brain is when I let it into the sunlight. But don’t think too badly of me – you’d be amazed how poorly your practical theology holds up to scrutiny. The point is, we all hold incredibly foolish beliefs, and these aren’t new thoughts. I don’t own them. Why do you think Paul felt the need to remind the church in Corinth not to feel discouraged by weaknesses that they felt were impossible hindrances? Because they felt discouraged by weaknesses that they thought were impossible hindrances.
And we’re no different.
God does not see hindrances. Insofar as it’s possible, I don’t believe he knows the word. He laughs at your inability, your weakness, your smallness – not because he agrees with any of that, but because he knows how little those words mean. What you believe are impossible hindrances in your life, what you perceive as disqualifying limitations, what you know for a fact are paralyzing incapabilities – God smiles at those things, because he sees abundant opportunities.
He’s like a kid in a sandbox, with nothing to hold him back from making the coolest thing out of nothing but sand and glitter and dirt that got in by mistake.
He chooses weak people; and he doesn’t choose them by mistake.
“God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.”
1st Corinthians 1:28-31
If you are in Christ, you can boast in the Lord. Your weaknesses are nothing; those hindrances are empty. He chooses the things that you despise in yourself to do some of his greatest work. That means the very things that most humiliate you are the parts he is the most excited for. The most shameful parts of you that cause you to shrink away are the very things that God will use, so that you can boast, “My God is so great.”
So there is no brokenness that can separate you from his love.
There is no weakness that can remove you from his plan.
There is no foolishness that can make him despise you.
There is no shame that can cause him to see you as insignificant.
There is nothing that can cause God’s plan for you to be defeated. And his plan for you is so, so good, so much better than you could ever believe.
It may not be the case that you want to be weak, or foolish, or small. It isn’t wrong to try to better yourself. But there’s no reason to be scared of those things either. When it turns out that you really are weak, or you actually have been foolish, or you truly are quite small and powerless, that’s no reason to be discouraged. It’s only one part of a story, and it only gets better from here.
So no, there’s nothing inherently virtuous or admirable about being great. Sure, it’s fine, but if you’re looking for something to boast in, you won’t find it there. But being small? Now there’s something to be excited about.
Christian, trust God and be small.