Seeing The Face of Humility Is A Great Eye Opener

Moderately throughout my life, I come to a point where I indulge myself into a bout of sincere honesty. As I stated in my previous post, I strive to be truthful when I think about my actions and words. I give no acclaim to self, but rightfully look to where I have been correct in words or actions or where I have been wrong in them.

You see my hopes do not rest upon my looks, character, personality, or charm, but more in my life’s work and my life’s task—the always progressive, but sometimes stagnate evolution in my relationship with God. That is where my reliance is and nowhere else. Yet, as frail as my words are, so my actions are also. Sometimes, I can be ignorant, get an ego, become totally lame, and there is obviously no reason for it. First of all, I should not do it because I am a Christian. Secondly, I’m just a stupid fat white kid and not really cool at all. Whenever I stumble upon a dim-witted situation such as this, God is faithful to remind me what truth is, however fuzzy it may look to me.

The Lord did not bless me with a great handsomeness. Nor did he bless me with any particular talent. I’m not necessarily ugly and I can even do a few things well, but there is nothing in particular that screams, instant physical attraction or TV heartthrob. Thus, the reasoning behind my post, because I can forget this, much like tonight.

It’s not that I carry a chip on my shoulder and proclaim that I am a stud or a ladies man. I just get little attacks of self-confidence for a season and I allow it to go straight to my head. There are very few clothes I feel comfortable in and that don’t make me feel like a pathetic slob. So, when I wear them, I actually have a fair amount of self-confidence in my looks. I guess I always let those few moments of buoyancy go sour.

Tonight I had my favorite pair of jeans on and my Further Seems Forever shirt, which fits reasonably well. I started walking to the bathroom at dinner and noticed a girl look at me. I proceeded to strut-my-stuff and ensue the ever so seducing “pimp walk”. Actually, I noticed the girl on the way out, but when I left the table, the whole macho man routine entered my mind, but not so much on the way out. After doing my business in the facilities, I walked up to the sink area and noticed I had some stuff on my shirt. As I looked closer, it was a lot of food I took with me from the table. Somehow, it even got all the way up to around my shoulder area. Anyway, as I cleaned myself off, I wondered how long it had been there. After, brushing off the food and my pride, I walked back to the table, noticing a waitress on the way out, and gave her a half-smile because she probably saw me on the way in.

For the rest of the night, my ego was deflated. I started thinking about how ridiculous I was being before I discovered the ration of food that I was saving up for winter. As many times as it has happened to me, I always forget the previous incidents. And you think I would at least remember my idiocy. But, I don’t. I think tonight’s episode will stay in my mind for a while. The annoying dilemma of over-confidence doesn’t just come up when I’m trying to impress girls, it comes when I’m basically trying to be something that I'm not. Confidence is fine, but egos are trite. I just need to remember that my assurance in myself should be minimal and my confidence must remain in Christ and in a Christ-like manner at all times. In hopes to not let that ego render me helpless from my own cesspool of stupidity, which is the only thing that I model well.

To the man who pleases him, God gives wisdom, knowledge and happiness, but to the sinner he gives the task of gathering and storing up wealth to hand it over to the one who pleases God. This too is meaningless, a chasing after the wind (Ecclesiastes 2:26, NIV).