When I was young and dumb, in my twenties, I knew everything. There were countless people and situations that I observed with a shaking head and a judgmental eye. How could they be so obtuse? How could they miss what was so blatantly obvious to me?
I don’t know exactly when it turned for me, maybe it was when I started “adulting” and stepping into positions where I needed to do more than follow. At some point though, I began to assess what was behind me and realize the gracious people that God had put in my path to help shape and form me to be who I am today.
The biggest pieces of humble pie that I have had to eat as I’ve gotten older are the ones that contained those judgmental glances at people whose story I didn’t fully know and whose abilities I questioned. What seemed so easy to me back then has been revealed to be much more difficult than my immature eye could see at that moment.
The innocent example is the newly married couple who looks with disgust at the young parents whose kid is having a meltdown in the middle of a very public place. “How come they can’t control that kid?” Or better yet, “When I’m a parent, my kids will NEVER act like that.” If I had a dollar for every time that phrase was uttered and then served up cold for that couple to eat just a few years later, I’d be rich.
It took a major career change and being well into my fifth decade of life for me to realize that I didn’t have all the answers. In fact, I barely had some of them. As much as I thought I knew, as harshly as I judged, time had revealed to me that there was far more than met the eye to both the situations and the leaders that I saw in those situations.
I continue to eat that humble pie. There are times when I still slip back into my old ways, the ways of thinking how much better I am than everyone else, the ways of believing that my approach is the only one and all others must comply and get in line.
If I have any regret in life, it’s that I didn’t learn this sooner. I wish I could have had conversations with my parents about this, to encourage and affirm them. I wish I could tell them just how right they were. I wish I could transmit the wisdom and experience of today back to that know-it-all decades ago.
Just a few years ago, before I planted the church that I currently lead, I sat down with some relatives who had planted churches. That youthful idealism rose up within me and I told them that I wasn’t necessarily concerned about hearing their success stories as much as their missteps and mistakes. They looked at me with a smile, a smile that had years of experience and wisdom behind it, and they said, “You might not make our mistakes, but you’ll make plenty of your own.”
Yup, I’m still eating humble pie, and I probably will be until the day God calls me home.