Praised and Humbled

One minute we are on top of the world, the next minute we find ourselves at the bottom of the gutter.  St. Peter found himself in both situations in less than 60 seconds.  When Jesus asks, “But who do you say that I am?”  Peter replies, “You are the Christ.”  He was like that student who is eager to raise his hand, get the answer right and then be acknowledged in front of the entire class.   That kind of enthusiasm needs to be encouraged and applauded.   And yet, that kind of enthusiasm also needs humility, unless one’s head blows up.   A lesson Peter learns within the next minute. 

Jesus begins to tell his disciples, “That the Son of Man must suffer greatly . . . and be killed.”  Peter then rebukes Jesus for talking such nonsense and the Good Lord responds to Peter, “Get behind me Satan: You are not thinking as God does, but as human beings do.”  One minute Peter is praised for his answer and within that minute he is also humbled for the wrong answer.

Now, we may not have experienced being praised and shot down within a minute and I am sure this scene may have taken longer than 60 seconds, but you get the point.  All of us like or love receiving praise.  It helps us to feel affirmed, wanted, respected, that we belong, that we are doing well, etc.  No one likes to be humbled; it makes us feel small, that we have not done so well, and we question ourselves and our own ability.  We forget, however, that when humbled we learn so much and it helps us to become a man – a woman, grown up, disciplined, strong and of good character, resolve, and teaches perseverance.

The Lord teaches us these lessons so that we can become mature – to learn, and to become “good.”  Society, however, shies away from this kind of learning, “becoming humble or to be humbled.”  Culture has changed, in the past people had toughness about them and they taught this toughness to their children by helping them to become humble, but something has shifted in our culture.  For example, twenty years ago if a young boy or girl got in trouble in school, they were also in trouble at home, the teacher was right 99.5% of the time.  Somewhere that shifted.  If that same student today got in trouble in school or was humbled by a teacher, coach, or mentor, they would not be in trouble at home, for the most part, and often times the parent\s will come to the school to plead the child’s case, i.e. the teacher is too rough, too hard on my child.

The problem here is that we don’t let kids grow up no more.  Maybe it was a little extreme in my day, I had tough teachers and coaches (all of whom were excellent), but the pendulum has definitely swung to other extreme – that now a child is protected from all constructive criticism and a child is not allowed to hear that he or she needs to work harder or that it was his or her fault, that they failed the test, or their team lost the game – which was not their fault but their coach’s fault.  We don’t let them grow up.  It’s not just the kids; we don’t want to grow up either.  I do not like to receive constructive criticism or to be humbled.  I can only imagine what Peter felt like to be lifted up one moment in front of the others and then to be shot down the very next in front of the others.  The good honest question here is, did that lesson help him or hurt him?  I think we can all agree that it helped him, especially since it was the Lord who was the teacher.  So, the question can go further, do lessons like that help us or do they hurt us?  I think, again, we can all agree that they help.  If so, then they can help our children as well.  Let them be humbled, whether it is in the classroom, on the field, with their friends, from the neighbors, don’t worry, they are made of tough stuff, they’ll get over it, we did.

I’ll share with you a scene from the movie “Gettysburg” which was taken from Michael Shaara’s “Killer Angels.”  The scene involved General Robert E. Lee reprimanding his Calvary Commander General Jeb Stuart.  Stuart was to have been relaying troop movements back to Lee prior to entering Gettysburg, this he did not do for whatever reasons, it left the Southern army blind.  When Lee finally met with Stuart he told him, “It is the opinion of some very fine officers that you have let us all down, you were to be our eyes, but you left us blind.  It was only by God’s grace that we survived.”  This was a terrible blow to Stuart, especially since he was considered a great Calvary Commander, and to have Lee lose faith in him was more than he could handle.  Stuart is shook up, he begins to relinquish his sword and rank, when Lee slams his fist on the table saying, “There is no time for that, there is no time, a mistake has been made, it will not be made again, you are one of the finest officers in this army, I know your quality, you must take what you have learned here and learn from it like a man learns.”  This is a powerful scene to see on film as well as to read that of Stuart coming home full of glory and soon afterward humbled.  I pray that I too can continue to learn like a man does, because the lessons of dealing with praise of others are good, but learning humility is better.

If you’d like to see the scene check it out on youtube here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WtX7veX5Lko

FJ