Humble Yourself

             Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up. (James 4:10)

          Oh boy, oh boy! So, all I have to do is tell God that I’m a miserable worm, and He’ll make me second in command of the nation like He did Joseph and Daniel? I’m rubbing my hands in anticipation! We all know it doesn’t work that way, but then we read the verse and our imaginations are off to the races.

          The problem is that if we focus on the second half of the verse, we aren’t doing the first part. Humbleness is not the means to an end unless that end is a good relationship with someone (especially God.)

          I’m listening to John Grisham’s Sooley, which is about a South Sudanese basketball player. One of the things Sooley does is to follow the example of other great basketball players. They spend hours a day, practicing single moves hundreds of times, so that the moves become a natural part of them. One of the complaints I’ve heard from celebrities is that these game shows (America’s Got Talent, The Voice, etc.) that grant the winner (and often runners up) “instant fame and fortune” violate the tradition and reality that artists need to spend time learning their craft, honing their skills, and paying their dues. Those who don’t are somehow cheating, and being cheated and exploited. There have been a number of celebrities who began by being willing to be ridiculous – rappers who have become TV stars, rock stars who eventually put out some music that shows they can actually sing and not just scream, etc. Sometimes, it’s like the celebrities who compete in Dancing With The Stars, who begin by moving to the music (step, step, pose) and somewhere along the line, start to dance.

          One thing about humbleness is that even if our dreams are for glory, we keep doing the hard, basic work. It’s one of the hard things about writing. I would love to have best-selling books (or at least the income therefrom) but the thing I have to keep in front of me is that it’s not about me. The story is what matters. I must do the best job I can with it and tell it whether anyone reads it or not. I must not impose myself on the story but allow it to be what it is. In fact, that’s part of the problem at the moment. Everything I had planned for book four has been destroyed by what happens in book three. The choice then is between imposing my will on the stories, or humbly doing what the story needs