False Humility

In Matthew 25 we read about a parable that Jesus told. It is commonly known as the parable of the talents. A talent was simply a form of currency. It would be sort of like us saying the parable of the quarters. Or dimes. You get the idea. It was a type of coin. Fortunately for us, the parable of the talents is about not using the things that God has entrusted into our care. This includes money, but it also includes, well, talents.

There are really so many lessons that we can learn from this parable. I will give you the short version of it. A wealthy man was leaving town. When he did, he left three of his servants money to care for; three varying amounts. Two of these men invested the dough. One went to the back yard and buried it. When the wealthy man returned two had earned an investment on his return. One had not. Who do you think he was mad at?

Now, my college professors would likely be mad at me for making points about the text that the author wasn't intending to make, but I am going out on a limb here anyway. I really think we can learn a lesson on humility. Namely, what humility is.

First, humility is not pretending like you don't have something that you actually do have. This is the most common misconception of humility. So many people are afraid of being good at things. Of being great. Of success. They see these things as not being humble. They think that if they acknowledge the fact that they are good at something, then they are arrogant about it.

This just isn't true. You can't pretend like you haven't been given something that you have.A baseball player who is a 5-tool Major League caliper player isn't going to go out and play for Big Earl's rec league softball team. Why? Because that would clearly be a major waste of the talent that has been given to him.

That is basically what the man who buried the talents did. For all practical purposes he pretended like he didn't have any talents. He did nothing with them. He had been entrusted with those talents, to use those talents. Instead he acted like he had none. 

Okay, so if we know what humility isn't then we are a little bit closer to knowing what humility is. Humility is acknowledging where the talents come from. God gave us talents, just like the wealthy man gave talents to his servants. How did they use those talents? They didn't go out and buy whatever they wanted. Rather, they used those talents to make a return on their master's money. Why? Because they knew who the talents belonged to.

So where does that leave us? We have all been given talents. God gives people things to use. Some people have been given A LOT of talents. Some people less. Really all of that is okay. The important thing is that we are humble with our talents. So let's not pretend like we don't have abilities, but let's instead use those abilities for our master's benefit.