As a young boy I dreamed of becoming a pro football player. I loved looking at Sports Illustrated and any other magazine I could get my hands on that had pictures from the NFL. But then in college I learned that in order to be in the NFL, you had to be really big and really, really good. But even though I gave up on the NFL, I never stopped having a desire to be someone great or to do something great.
I think that most kids have a dream like that… to accomplish something huge… to be someone famous…If you ask a child, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” you never hear them say, “I just want to be average.”
We all have dreams of greatness. But many times our dreams have a head on collision with reality. Life gets in the way. Pain, disappointment, broken relationships. Debt. Things that don’t work. Unreasonable or unmet expectations. When that happens, our dream fizzles or fades & we settle for a lesser dream.
As I grew to be a man, the innocence of childhood was lost. And I began to develop a dream of what it looks like to be a man. I learned at a very young age that men are chasers. They love to chase things. The object of the chase is almost secondary to the chase itself. We chase a career; we chase power; we chase women, money, positions, & whatever.
And it’s not enough for us to chase. We want to capture and then show off what we’ve won. That’s why men love trophies and awards. We have stuffed fish and animal heads on our walls. We chased it; we captured it; we conquered it. We have kept framed certificates from the Little League Baseball team we played on years & years ago…
Another thing I learned from those around me is that a real man works hard. He’s strong. He’s prideful. He conquers. He advances. He gets his way. But now, somehow, I think I got it all wrong.
The chase we’re always striving for really leads to dead ends. It never satisfies; it never fills the void.
I’d like to be able to tell you that I’m not proud and self-centered. But I still am. And I wish I wasn’t. But I’m a “work in progress”. Fortunately, God isn’t finished with me yet.
Do you regularly feel the desire and the need to win? The need to be noticed? The desire to prove your worth? The need to be first & be valued? If so, you probably find humility difficult as well.
We all need to learn how to stop the chase and take a knee… How can we do that? Here are a few examples…Instead of retaliating, you reconcile. That’s humility. You ask questions and listen, instead of doing all the talking. That’s taking a knee. In your job or your business, you make other people the heroes instead of you. That requires humility. You say, “Sorry. I was wrong.” That’s taking a knee.
Humility may require you to choose discomfort so that other people around you can have comfort. In the marketplace, you minimize your status of boss so you can serve people below you. I’m not saying you don’t express your influence. Just don’t express your ego. That requires humility. Stop the chase and take a knee.
Every gladiator or warrior… when they came back from the battle and back from the fight, they took a knee before the king. Not because they were weak, but because they had a greater understanding about the king. And he would take a knee and submit to a higher authority. Think about it this way… A Football player is suited up with enough armor to knock somebody out, to destroy, to tackle, and to conquer. But when the coach comes on the field and says, “Men, take a knee.” They take a knee around him. Not because they’re weak, but because they understand who the coach is. He has the game plan; he’s got the wisdom to help them succeed.
Humility is not a sign of weakness. You can’t be humble if you’re weak. You’ve got to be strong. Humility flows out of security. God is God. And because God is God and I feel secure & I feel accepted I can take a knee of humility.
Keep this in mind: God’s dream for us is something greater than we could ever hope or imagine. But His dream for us isn’t something we chase. God’s dream is something we become. He wants to carve us into the image of Jesus.
Less Kevin, more Jesus. Less pride, more humility. Less self, more service. Less apathy, more compassion. God wants to create a new nature in me. He wants me to look like His Son.
In Romans 8 in the Phillips paraphrase it says, “God chose them to bear the family likeness of His Son.”
God carves, we submit. We submit, God carves. We stop the chase and take a knee…Many of us think that humility is a posture of submission?” You might even think humility is synonymous with timid. William Wallace in the movie Braveheart timid and weak! He painted his face blue and yelled ‘Freedom!’ He was courageous. He was a battler. But he did practice humility before God and his king. And in the end, he took a knee so others could be free.
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