#602. Trying to be humble, a 7 Step Guide.

(How do you become humble? It’s difficult right? I mean it’s not like there’s one magic step that makes you humble. It’s actually seven steps and they’re all here today at Stuff Christians Like thanks to unstoppable guest blogging machine Curtis. Enjoy.)

Trying to become humble, a Seven Step Guide

One of the stupidest things I’ve ever done is prayed for God to make me more humble. I think this might be one of the only prayers that God will always answer with an emphatic “YES”.

Below is a seven step guide to becoming humble. I’ve found that I am often humbled participating in church activities, many of them in incredibly public situations. Some of these scenarios are autobiographical; I’ll let you decide for yourself which ones have happened to me and which ones are made up.

1.) Be the back-up right fielder for your church’s softball team.
It doesn’t get much less important than this, unless your role is team bat boy. The college minister’s four year old son is already pretty good at that, so when you’re riding the pine while your team is out to even the score with the Methodists, you’ll get really good at spitting sunflower seed husks and heckling the umpire “in Christian love.”

2.) Get demoted to page turner for the pianist.
So you can’t carry a tune in a bucket. Who knew the men’s choir didn’t need any bropranos? Your new job is to turn pages for the pianist (what they didn’t tell you is that it’s an a capella choir called “In One A-Chord”).

3.) Be the low man on the hand bell totem pole.
You know the hand bell that looks like the Liberty Bell pre-crack? Yeah, you’re playing that one. It gets thumped once every seventeen offertories. But, hey, at least you get to wear those fancy white gloves. Maybe you can use them to practice being a Christian mime or something. After all, wasn’t it St. Francis of Assisi who said, “Preach the Gospel at all times and when necessary use words”?

4.) Get booed off the stage at a nursing home.
Sure, it’s a nice idea to go and sing to residents at the local nursing home. But just because you own a guitar doesn’t mean you are a guitar player, especially when you also aren’t a very good singer. Sometimes no visitors is better than visitors who ruin Frank Sinatra songs.

5.) Get cast as understudy for the felt board storyteller.
Sure, Framanda is like the Tiger Woods of felt board storytelling. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t get your time to shine (especially when you’ve created your own custom felt board version of the rapture story for the five year old Sunday school class).

6.) Sort out the green M&Ms for the diva worship leader.
Someone has to do it. Otherwise he just won’t go on. After all, the green ones are the holiest. Maybe one day you’ll be promoted to “faux hawk re-geller” so you can keep the awesome cranked up to eleven before the worship leader goes out and flexes the golden pipes during the special music portion of the worship service.

7.) Get nominated as Frisbee caddy for the pastor’s son by the recreation committee.
You’ve really hit rock bottom if you find yourself wading through ponds and crawling around in poison ivy looking for the pastor’s son’s Frisbee at the local disc golf course. Maybe instead of praying for humility you should be praying for a new serving role at your church.

I think we could all use at least a small dose of humility (points to self), but be careful what you pray for. If any combination of these things happens to you, you’ll have some stories to trade with Job when you get to heaven. Just don’t go out and get a shirt that says “Who has two thumbs and is really humble? THIS GUY.” That really defeats the purpose.

What are some ways (funny or not) that you’ve been humbled?

(For more great stuff from Curtis, check out his blog justwallpaper.wordpress.com)