If you're humble and you know it, clap your hands.
I’m not humble enough I'm sure. Maybe I am a little, but not very much (Sam’s nodding in agreement). I’d be tempted to ask God to help me become more humble, but a friend pointed out to me several years ago when I said I was praying for patience, that praying for patience was asking for trouble because God would just keep testing me. I’m pretty sure asking to become more humble would involve the same kind of help from the Big Guy, so I’ll just hope that I turn humble by osmosis or something - it’ll just happen, I won’t have to work at it.
I wonder how many of this year’s Olympic athletes were truly humble. Apparently it is easier to be humble if you lose a race or have to run on artificial legs or something like that. Usain Bolt, the Jamaican runner, sure didn’t seem humble after winning the 100 and 200 meter sprints. He kept saying he was the greatest and kept holding a No. 1 finger in the air. I wish when people did that someone would break their finger off. Our U.S. women’s soccer team didn’t seem so humble after winning the soccer gold either. Then there was that wrestler Burroughs . . .
Don’t get me wrong. I am proud of what our country’s athletes achieved in this Olympics. But I was truly impressed by that Aussie guy running on artificial legs and by the U.S. runner who kept on going even though his leg broke during the competition. And for sheer humbleness, you had to admire the lone woman competitor from Saudi Arabia who finished dead last in her 800 m race. All of our platform divers should be more humble after the Chinese divers so thoroughly kicked butt.
Do we even start out humble? When we’re little babies we are so totally dependent on others you would think we’d be humble, but listening to a baby cry for its dinner or to have its diaper changed quickly dispels that myth. I can’t help bringing this up because I saw three little baby boys in church today being cuddled by their fathers and it was so danged sweet. Each of them was resting its little head on his father’s shoulder, sleeping peacefully while mass was being conducted. Those little guys looked so innocent, so dependent on dad, so cherubic. Man, I just wanted to walk over to a pew and kiss one of those little guys’ cheeks. But I bet they weren’t all that humble.
The trouble is when competing in sports; you often have to set aside humbleness. If you don’t think you’re great, you probably aren’t. It takes a certain amount of self-confidence (chutzpah, if you will) to perform well in sports and under the great pressure of something like the Olympic Games.
It takes a certain amount of chutzpah, brass, bravado, brazenness, etc. to write this blog three days a week. If I didn’t think it was the greatest thing to hit the internet I wouldn’t be able to keep it up. Maybe someday I’ll have to eat humble pie and admit it isn’t that great - we all get bested sooner or later - but until that day comes, here’s a bag of poop on your shoes.
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