Humility

I am still reading "The Seven Spiritual Gifts of Waiting" and have been really moved by the chapter on the gift of humility.  I need to re read the chapter to gain more from it, but I found the following poem really spoke to me.  The words are from Marianne Williamson.

Our deepest fear

is not that we are inadequate.

Our deepest fear

is that we are powerful beyond measure.

It is our light,

not our darkness,

that most frightens us.

We ask ourselves,

who am I to be brilliant,

gorgeous, talented, fabulous?

Actually, who are you not to be?

You are a child of God.

Your playing small

doesn't serve the world.

There's nothing enlightened about shrinking

so that other people

won't feel insecure around you.

We were born to make manifest

the glory of God that is within us.

It's not just in some of us;

it's in everyone.

And as we let our own light shine,

we unconsciously give other people

permission to do the same.

As we are liberated from our own fear,

our presence automatically liberates others.

How true are those words?  I feel that sometimes, especially as a pastor's spouse, we shrink into the back round because we don't want to offend people or make them feel like they don't know something.  Now I realize maybe sometimes we are called to use our gifts.  In the gift of waiting, you have the time to use the gifts God gave you to help others.  Humility doesn't mean shrinking away from those gifts because you feel others might hurt from them.  If you use your gifts as God intended you should be helping people and they will hopefully benefit from the gift you are giving them.  Humility does not mean you stand in the back ground all the time.  Sometimes, yes, but God has made us all different so that we can stand where we are needed.  And no matter what, we are a child of God, and we are to live in the light.  However He calls us to do that...