Don't Be Impressed With Yourself
How to Carry Influence Without Believing Your Own Hype
Before we get started today - I’ve got some news for you if you didn’t catch this last Monday!!
Read It or Press Play
Some days you may want to slow down, settle in, and read every word. Other days, you may want to press play and listen while you’re driving, folding laundry, getting ready, or pretending the pile of dishes is not staring at you.
Now you can do either.
Each Unfiltered Faith article on Monday’s will still be here for you to read, but you’ll also have the option to watch or listen as I share it with you. I’ll stay close to what I wrote, but because I apparently cannot read my own words without adding a thought, a story, or a little extra commentary, you may hear a few things that never quite made it onto the page.
So grab your coffee, choose what works for your day, and let’s dig into God’s Word together. (Video is at the end of the article)
Don’t Be Impressed With Yourself
When I was three years old, I absolutely loved to sing.
I sang all the time, made up my own songs - like my #1 hit when I was 6 years old called “I’m going downtown!”, and belted them out with the confidence of someone who had already topped the charts.
One particular Sunday, my dad, who was a pastor and missionary, decided to let me sing a song in church. He handed me the microphone, and away I went, singing what I was certain was my first number-one hit.
The problem came when the song was over.
My dad reached for the microphone, and I refused to give it back. I did not hesitate. I did not misunderstand what he was asking. I simply had no intention of surrendering that microphone. Apparently, I had tasted the spotlight and decided the rest of the church service should continue with my concert.
My dad tried again, but I held on. Eventually, it took a firm little pat on the behind to convince me that my debut performance had officially ended. And just like that, my singing career started and ended in one day. He did not let me sing in church again until I was around ten years old.
Honestly, I cannot blame him. There is nothing quite like watching your three-year-old daughter turn one church special into a hostile microphone takeover.
As funny as that story is, I have been thinking about how easy it is for us to do the very same thing with God. He hands us a microphone. He gives us an opportunity, opens a door, places a gift inside of us, or allows us to lead, create, build, speak, serve, and carry influence.
At first, we are in complete awe that He would use us at all.
We are grateful, humbled, and fully aware that we could never have created the opportunity on our own. We know it was God who opened the door, God who provided the strength, and God who placed the gift inside of us.
But then people begin to notice. The work grows. The gift begins producing fruit. The open door becomes a platform, and somewhere in the middle of it all, something can quietly begin to shift. We are no longer simply grateful for what God is doing through us. We start becoming impressed with ourselves because He is doing it through us.
That is a dangerous shift.
There is a significant difference between being thankful for what God has placed inside of us and becoming fascinated with ourselves because of it.
Humility does not mean pretending we are not gifted. It does not mean shrinking, hiding, or acting as though we have nothing meaningful to offer. Humility means remembering where every gift came from and refusing to confuse being used by God with being the source of what God is doing.
We may be the vessel, but He is the One who fills it.
We may carry the message, but He is the One who gives it power.
We may hold the microphone, but the breath, the song, the opportunity, and the influence all belong to Him.
Look At What ‘I’ Did
King Nebuchadnezzar learned this lesson in a far more dramatic way.
In Daniel 4, Nebuchadnezzar stood looking over the kingdom of Babylon and said, “Is not this the great Babylon I have built as the royal residence, by my mighty power and for the glory of my majesty?”
There it was—the spiritual equivalent of refusing to hand the microphone back.
Nebuchadnezzar looked at everything under his leadership and became impressed with himself. He saw the kingdom, the power, the influence, and everything that had been built, but he no longer saw the God who had allowed him to hold any of it. His heart had shifted from, “Look what God has allowed,” to, “Look what I have built.” He moved from stewardship to ownership, from gratitude to grandiosity, and from bringing glory to God to admiring his own majesty.
Pride has a way of making us forget that what is in our hands
was never ours to worship.
Nebuchadnezzar had been warned in a dream about what would happen if he continued walking in pride. Daniel even pleaded with him to turn from his ways, but Nebuchadnezzar did not listen. Twelve months later, while he was walking on the roof of the royal palace, he looked over Babylon and began congratulating himself for its greatness.
The words had barely left his mouth before judgment came.
God humbled Nebuchadnezzar. He lost his position, his understanding, and the life he had known. The man who had stood proudly overlooking his kingdom was driven away from people and lived like a wild animal until he finally lifted his eyes toward heaven.
That detail matters because his restoration began when he looked up.
His understanding returned when his eyes moved away from everything he had built and returned to the One who had given him the ability to build it. At the end of his story, Nebuchadnezzar praised God and declared that “those who walk in pride he is able to humble.”
Give the Microphone Back
Hopefully, most of us can learn this lesson without spending seven years living like a wild animal. Sometimes all we need is the Holy Spirit lovingly whispering, “You are becoming a little too impressed with yourself. Hand the microphone back.”
God is not asking us to hand it back because He wants to silence us or because He no longer wants to use the gifts He placed inside of us. Confidence is not wrong, and neither is recognizing that God has called us, equipped us, or entrusted us with something meaningful. The danger comes when we begin treating borrowed influence as personal greatness.
The safest place for influence is in the hands of someone
who remembers that it is borrowed. It is a gift by God, Himself.
The healthiest people are not those who pretend they carry nothing significant. They are the ones who can carry significant things without allowing those things to make them feel significant apart from God. They can receive honor without becoming entitled to it. They can be celebrated without becoming dependent upon the applause. They can carry influence without allowing influence to carry them away.
They can sing the song and still know when it is time to release the microphone.
God does not ask us to think poorly of ourselves. He asks us to think rightly of ourselves. Romans 12:3 tells us not to think of ourselves more highly than we ought, but to think of ourselves with sober judgment. In other words, humility is not saying, “I am nothing, I have nothing, and I can do nothing.” Humility is being able to acknowledge what God has placed inside of us without forgetting that without Him, we are not the source of any of it.
We can celebrate growth, acknowledge the gift, receive encouragement, and be grateful when God uses us. We can enjoy the moment, walk confidently through the door He opened, and sing the song He gave us with everything inside of us. But we must never become more impressed with the vessel than we are with the One who filled it.
So as we reflect on what God has placed within us, the prayer of our heart speaks:
God, thank You for trusting me with the microphone. Help me sing when You ask me to sing, and help me stop when the song is finished. Keep me from confusing being used by You with being the reason anything is happening. When I begin gripping what You only asked me to steward, remind me that it was always Yours.
No holy pat on the behind necessary.
Hopefully.
The goal to remember is God is the gift-giver and to live continually aware of that truth. It is to carry what He gives us with open hands, remaining grateful when He uses us and willing to release it when the moment is finished.
So use the gift. Walk through the door. Steward the influence. Sing the song with everything inside of you. But never forget Who handed you the microphone.
And let every beautiful thing God does through your life become one more reason to be impressed with Him.
~Tracee
Watch today’s article here: