rejoice in your smallness

Ed Welch:

There are seven billion people on this planet. We are replaceable. No one is indispensable. No matter how big a splash we make in our own local pond, the ripples will only last a minute or two. We really are small and insignificant.

On top of being small and insignificant, we are failures. Take any standard: Mom’s hopes and dreams for you, your boss’s expectations, world records, batting averages, your income or God’s standards. We fail at them all...

Our falling short of God’s standards is the most far-reaching and palpable failure that human beings experience. It is also the one we sense the least. Hiding behind all other failures, this is the granddaddy of them all. We are failures before God. We are God’s offspring who were intended for greatness and we seem to ruin everything we touch.

Now what?

There are plenty of ways to go, but consider just resting here for a while. Enjoy it. You are a failure, so am I, so is the person whose easy success you envy. Human beings are small and insignificant; human beings are also failures. Go ahead. Admit it and take a break from covering yourself with your fraudulent resume. This is called weakness, and it is critical to the abundant life. You cannot really appreciate grace without it.

Then be amazed:

What is man that you are mindful of him,
the son of man that you care for him? (Ps. 8:4)

Read the rest here.