My life story is one filled with humbling moments. To start it all off, I was born 2.5 months premature, only 3 pounds. The doctors told my parents that if I lived, I would probably never walk. Those early days were a challenge for me just to survive. In fact, to keep me breathing, the nurses tied a string around one of my toes and they would pull on it when I would stop breathing, to get me breathing again. At about a year old, I was diagnosed with Cerebral Palsy.
My childhood was also filled with humbling moments. I spent most of my childhood in a wheelchair. Surgeries, body casts and physical therapy were the norm. I relied on others to help me through life. All very humbling.
Then life started to take a turn for the better. I learned to walk. One step-at-a-time. I became a radio disc jockey in high school and then a CBS news anchor/reporter after college. However, life still had its humbling moments (like when I fell on my friend’s grandma during senior prom pictures- a story for another time (smile)
Now as a missionary, pastor and motivational speaker, husband and father, I still have humbling moments. A few weeks ago, my wife Julie and our kids, Kees and Sela were invited over to dinner at some friends’ house. Any time you meet new friends, you want to make a good impression. And I did. On the floor (smile). As we were leaving their house at the end of a wonderful evening, I tripped and fell. As I was flying through the air in another humbling moment, I had flashbacks of other humbling moments…falling at a state spelling bee, falling on a first date. I don’t fall very often when I do, I make sure it counts (smile).
Here’s the deal…I am starting to become okay with humbling moments. In fact, I am even learning to expect them like an old friend stopping by for a visit.
Psalm 37:23-24 says: “The Lord makes firm the steps of the one who delights in him; though he may stumble, he will not fall, for the Lord upholds him with his hand.”
If you notice, the writer of the Psalms guarantees humbling moments- for us all. They are unavoidable. But you know what I have found, without those humbling moments, we never get to experience the promise of this verse- For the Lord upholds him with his hand.
The humbling moments of life have a way of reminding us that we are human.
That we are weak and frail, despite our best efforts to the contrary.
But if we lean in today to our humbling moments and look to God for our dignity, our strength, our identity? We might find a freedom that we have never found before. I know I have and it’s all very humbling.