In many ways, we grow up being told to stay small. Give way to others, don’t be too loud, make do with what you have, don’t take up too much space. While I agree that we have to learn how to play nice with others and share public space, we don’t realize how much of this spills into our inner lives. So much so that we often apply this smallness into our dreams, visions, and desires for ourselves.

Don’t ask for too much becomes settle for less than you deserve.

Don’t be an inconvenience becomes don’t ask for help.

Don’t take up too much space becomes make your self small to accommodate other people.

And then we wrap this up in the guise of humility and and down-to-earthness, applauding people for being so easy to work with and not demanding, when in reality they just don’t know how to ask. We have so internalized the virtue of being small that we deny ourselves even the most inconsequential requests.

The very first moment I realized this about myself was from when I was a full blown college student- an actual adult. We were in a theater at another university to watch a film that was required for class. I was with my friend Avisha who, unlike me, was so unafraid and unapologetically herself. We found ourselves at an awkward sitting area that would be made so much better by asking some stranger to just scooch one seat over. She asked me to ask the guy to kindly just move one seat please.

I looked at her in horror, as if to say how dare you ask me to inconvenience a person by moving one seat over! I could never be so bold! I told her that I was too shy to ask, which was so ridiculous because I am not a shy person at all, I just didn’t know how to ask other people to do things for me. Avisha rolled her eyes at me and said, if you don’t ask, the answer will always be no.

She sweetly asked the guy to move, he did so without even thinking twice, and we sat through the film. I do not remember what the film was, but I will always remember that lesson that Vish inadvertently taught me that day. If you never ask, the answer will always be no. (Avisha, wherever you are today, I love you so much and I hope you are well)

This unlearning has been decades in the making. Last night I found a bunch of old notebooks of mine, and in each one were pages and pages of business ideas, video concepts, lists of dreams and goals. So many. And while I made good on a few, a whole lot went unrealized because I didn’t follow through. I found myself too afraid to bet on myself, too afraid to ask for help because why would others bet on me?

I can’t start this YouTube channel because why would anyone care what I have to say?

No one will hire my surprise party planning event management group because no one will think this idea makes any sense!

This play cafe is a super great idea but I don’t know anything about business. I won’t even float this idea to others because (i don’t even know why).

If I shine too bright, people might say I’m so full of myself. If I take up too much space, people might think I’m entitled. If I act like I deserve to be here, what if no one agrees?

Even if I didn’t say these words verbatim, my actions (or lack thereof) spoke them. I wanted to stay humble, I didn’t want to act like a big-headed buffoon who thought highly of herself. Didn’t want to seem proud or arrogant. As a Christian, this is what was required of me, right? To be humble.

But I feel like I got it so, so wrong these last few years. Holding myself back because I had the wrong idea about what it meant to be humble.

It isn’t about not thinking highly of yourself; it isn’t even about me at all. It’s about making it all about Christ.

We are not going to be given gifts and abilities just to cover it up. We will not be given brilliance and shine just so we can dumb it down to make others more comfortable.

The verse says ‘Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit,’ says the LORD Almighty. That’s from Zechariah 4:6. It didn’t say you can’t do stuff. What it says is my Spirit will give you the power to overcome.

And then you have Philippians 4:13 that says I can do all this through him who gives me strength. Which literally tells us you can do it, even when it is hard, because God is your source of strength.

Humility isn’t about not doing things because you want to remain humble. Humility means you need to acknowledge that you need God to give you clarity of purpose. That I need to acknowledge that I am nothing and can do nothing on my own, but through Christ, I can do all things. That I need help, and sometimes that help comes in the form of other people. But that if I never ask, the answer will always be no.

We were created to be creative, to achieve, to overflow. I realize now that humility simply means we need to know Who our source and our purpose is.

As you can see I’m still working all this out. I’m grappling with what this means for me in my current situation and all of these dreams and ideas I hold so gingerly in my hands. From here on in, may I always have the humility to take up the space that God intended me to be in, and the humility to ask, even if the answer ends up being no.