“Let your actions always speak for you, but be forever on guard against the terrible traps of false pride and conceit that can halt your progress. The next time you are tempted to boast, just place your fist in a full pail of water, and when you remove it, the hole remaining will give you a correct measure of your importance." ~ Og Mandino
There's a missing link somewhere between learning confidence and consciousness. If I'm self-confident, it's quite possible that I can see others and think I'm better than them. If I'm self-conscious, it's quite possible that I can see others and think they're better than me. Either way, there is too much of an imbalance. The only way the swing of my pendulum finally balanced itself out to perfect calm was the introduction of the X Factor into my life.
That X-Factor--or should I say, Cross Factor--was turning my life over to the only One Who has always maintained perfect control. I met Jesus on the floor of my dorm room, crying my eyes out. I thought I'd met Him in church, but there was too much formality for me to get to Him. I thought I'd met Him at the volleyball championship game where I played my heart out but we still lost...but even though He was there, I got angry at Him because I didn't win. I thought I'd met Him at military training, but I think it was only in passing...everyone meets Jesus either at basic training or in prison. LOL But when I met Him for real on a personal level, I began to see that the X-Factor was really HIS type of Humility!
So if I have God-Confidence, I know that regardless of the situation or circumstance, as long as He is guiding me, I can't go wrong. Even in the darkness, His Words gently whisper in my ear about who He created me to be. You mean to tell me that in the midst of all this debt, I still have the potential to be an investor and not a consumer? You said it, and I know You can't lie! Let's make it happen!
If I'm God-Conscious, I can look at others and see beyond where they are right now. I can see them in the future where they look much better than they look now. I can see beyond the sprouts budding now, but the trees and forests they are about to become!
So like Og Mandino, I guard myself not only against false pride, but false humility. The next time I'm tempted to belittle myself to make someone else look big, I need to think about the force of that water saturating everything that it comes in contact with and remember that if God created me, it's possible that greatness is inevitable if I lean the totality of who I am upon the vastness of Who He is.
Then the humble shall truly speak of Him and be glad that they no longer have to pretend that they are not who God says they are.
Someone pass me a microphone...I've got something to say.
