Compelling new understanding about humility

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It has just turned 4.00 am, and I hope I’ll be able to type this post quickly!

This post is directed at anyone who like me has struggled with humility. I believe I have recently gained a new perspective which is quite sobering, and yes, humbling.

Here’s the thing: God has naturally blessed me with several skills to the extent where it can objectively be stated that I am both highly talented and extremely gifted. At school due to highly developed cognitive skills I *effortlessly* excelled at everything except art. And geography. And arguably history. It surprises people to look at me but a younger me was the bookwormiest of bookworms. Not particularly studious, as it happens, but an absolutely voracious reader! So basically I struggled with the necessary motivation for schoolwork, but all the same I was always to be found in a book. Furthermore, in addition to those natural skills, I sat down in my early twenties and decided to claim basically everything that was available to me through the Word of God and the Gospel. So now I walk in confidence of all those skills and talents – both the extensive natural talents, plus everything else I’ve been able to claim. And believe me, I have absolutely no qualms about being greedy with God’s promises. On the flip side, I’ve also been largely broke which has kinda balanced everything out! If I was as financially successful as I expected to be, my head would be as big as a planet, no question! Some people would argue that it already is!

This has been my problem with humility: objectively I am good at those things. (Adulthood has been humbling to a certain extent, in recognising the vast number of things I don’t naturally excel at. But in adulthood I have learned how to learn different things, and I have been quite successful at picking up skills. Anything that is written down in a book. I naturally excel at. Anything that involves time management, or any other kind of management, or interacting with people, I don’t excel at! Which is why I am always losing my domain names, for instance! (OK, that’s only happened twice!) ) So there has been no point trying to deceive myself for the sake of humility that I am not really good at those things I am good at. The simple fact is I am good at those things. So I would often think maybe of various skills or certain achievements and I would smile to myself. So I just have not known how to be aware of those things, how to take legitimate pride in them / or be thankful for them, and also how to be humble at the same time. When I spend all my time thinking about these things and smiling to myself about them, how can it not go to my head?! The fact is that they already in my head, that’s why I’m smiling at them!!!

So what I am about to share is the understanding that finally occurred to me:
Yes, all these things are real and I don’t want to diminish them. However, all these talents that God has given me are going to represent advantages only for the extent of my lifetime. And then when we get to Heaven it will be a much more level playing field. Oh.
Furthermore, at my age, I am now more than halfway through an average human lifespan. Oh. Oh.

So in summary, yes, these talents and advantages are real. But they are so shortlived, Looking at things from an eternal perspective, we are going to be eternally essentially the same. So in the grand, that is eternal scheme of things, that is the true perspective for everything, our earthly gifts, talents, accomplishments, positions, wealth etc are essentially irrelevant.

So I would really like to thank God for granting me this perspective because I needed it so badly. And I would also like to thank anyone who has been praying for me to get a grasp on humility because I feel that it has finally landed.