{"id":4605,"date":"2025-05-06T08:53:12","date_gmt":"2025-05-06T12:53:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/js1cd06kre.onrocket.site\/?p=4605"},"modified":"2025-05-06T08:53:12","modified_gmt":"2025-05-06T12:53:12","slug":"a-hard-lesson-in-humility","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/2025\/05\/06\/a-hard-lesson-in-humility\/","title":{"rendered":"A Hard Lesson in Humility"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast,\u00a0<\/em>click here<\/a>

I\u2019ve had a lifetime love affair with the Indianapolis \u201c500.\u201d\u00a0

As a resident of central Indiana, it\u2019s been relatively easy to make my way to the track on race day so I can join 300,000 of my closet friends.

Back in the early 1970s, however, things got trickier. The date of the race moved from May 30 (which used to be the fixed annual date of Memorial Day) to the fourth Sunday of the month, one day before the current national holiday on the fourth Monday. \u00a0

How does a pastor go to the track when the biggest racing event of the year is held on a Sunday?

The answer is to grow your church large enough to hire a second pastor \u2013 one who annually receives the \u201cprivilege\u201d of preaching on Memorial Day weekend.

That makes sense.\u00a0But it didn\u2019t address my neurotic guilt that I was somehow being a slacker by surrendering worship leadership in order to go schmooze with the crowd.

My anxiety about this came to a head more than 30 years ago. \u00a0\u00a0

At that time I wore glasses only for long-distance vision.\u00a0My glasses would come off and on throughout the day, and I frequently misplaced them.

On the morning of the race that year I couldn\u2019t find my glasses anywhere.\u00a0I knew I would need them to get a clear look at the field of 33.\u00a0

Suddenly I realized where they were.\u00a0On Friday afternoon I had left them sitting on my desk at church.\u00a0

Rats<\/em>.\u00a0

What made things interesting is that the very time our family would be driving toward the track coincided with the arrival of our worship crowd.\u00a0

I drove into the church lot and parked well in the back.\u00a0My family sat there with me.\u00a0\u201cSo, are you going to go inside and get your glasses, or not?\u201d

I couldn\u2019t muster the courage to walk into the building wearing shorts and a T-shirt on a Sunday morning.\u00a0People do that rather often these days (pastors included).\u00a0But at the time it seemed like I\u2019d be sending a really bad message.

So I did the brave thing: I passed the buck<\/em>.

I turned to my oldest son and said, \u201cHere\u2019s the key to Daddy\u2019s office.\u00a0All you have to do is slip inside and get my glasses.\u201d\u00a0About that time Mary Sue gave me a look that communicated, with unmistakable clarity, that Real Men Get Their Own Glasses.

Which is why I decided, with a deep sigh, to drive away. I spent three hours that day watching semi-blurry race cars.

A few weeks later I told this story to my congregation.\u00a0I was totally caught off guard by the response.\u00a0A number of people were genuinely angry <\/em>with me \u2013 not because I was a race fan, but because I didn\u2019t walk into my office that Sunday morning.

I\u2019ll never forget what one of my key leaders said to me afterwards:

\u201cDon\u2019t you ever do that again<\/em>.\u00a0Don\u2019t you ever give in to the fear that you can\u2019t be a real human being with us.\u201d\u00a0

It was a priceless opportunity to learn something about leadership transparency. And it was a hard-won lesson in the difference between true humility and the false self that so often masquerades as the Real Me.

The apostle Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 4:7, \u201cWe have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0

It\u2019s all about God\u2019s gift of new life.\u00a0 It\u2019s not about the clay vessel.\u00a0We just get to be the containers of God\u2019s best stuff.\u00a0

Therefore we must not take ourselves too seriously<\/em>.\u00a0

Three weeks from this Sunday I\u2019ll once again attend the Indianapolis \u201c500\u201d \u2013 grateful simply to be one of God\u2019s cracked pots.
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast,\u00a0click here I\u2019ve had a lifetime love affair with the Indianapolis \u201c500.\u201d\u00a0 As a resident of central Indiana, it\u2019s been relatively easy to make my way to the track on race day so I can join 300,000 of my closet friends. Back in the early 1970s, however, things got trickier. The date of… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4606,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[131],"class_list":["post-4605","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-humility"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4605","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4605"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4605\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4607,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4605\/revisions\/4607"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4606"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4605"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4605"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4605"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}