You’re not that special.
Your whole life you’ve been pampered, bragged about, helmeted, and bubble-wrapped. When you were growing up, the entire focus of everyone around you was building your self-confidence. Even if you had a hard life or bad parents, you still had school teachers and church leaders and possibly aunts and uncles who tried everything imaginable to convince you to believe in yourself and tap into your great potential.
Most likely, in the early days….
Your momma held you, kissed you, fed you, wiped your mouth, wiped your butt, trained you, taught you, tutored you, coached you, listened to you, counseled you, encouraged you, consoled you and then encouraged you again. Your parents nudged, coddled, and even held you after you scraped your knee. You’ve been called sweetie pie, pretty, unique, smart, talented, adorable. All this before you were even old enough to poop and wipe on your own.
And throughout your most formidable years you’ve had family, friends and sometimes even crowds cheering for you at your ball games, plays, recitals, science fairs. Smiles ignited when you walked into a room, and hundreds now gasp with delight at your instagram pictures.
Remember when you went into beast mode through Elementary school, and at 5th grade graduation you got all kinds of awards and trophies? Honor roll, perfect attendance, most improved, mrs congeniality, etc.
Then you blew through middle school like… “this isn’t awkward, you’re awkward. I’m not crying, you’re crying” You were an all star, a champion, you achieved the presidential fitness award, the honor roll, etc.
The worst part about middle school for you was:
1) the braces on your teeth made it difficult to eat sticky candies.
2) the other kids in your classes didn’t dote on you like your mom and your school teachers. They didn’t treat you like Gods gift to the world and it shocked you. You called them bullies.
Middle school was just the beginning of a big dose of reality.
But you survived. You braved the awful 8th grade awkwardness and then eventually conquered high school…
You didn’t win at everything, but you definitely dominated at something… you excelled in some area of your life and started to make that your identity.
- athletics
- art/design
- good looks and fashion
- social media fame
- friendships
- academics
- people pleasing
- religious stuff
There’s no doubt about it, you did something well, and by the end of your time in High School, your biggest cheerleaders…mom, dad, grandma, grandpa, cousins, bf, gf, they all gathered for you and threw a party as you turned your little tiny tassel from one side of your cap to the other.
Then came a new beginning. You left your bubble, the incubator that affirmed you and held you and coddled you. And a year, maybe a couple of years into this new world…
POP.
You’re not cute anymore. The workforce is brutal, college is demanding, marriage is hard, raising kids isn’t so dreamy, and life is sometimes painful. This isn’t unique to you, its true for everyone. Life isn’t always a blooming flower, most of the time it’s fairly mundane, it’s less eventful, and not a party, and it’s most definitely not your party.
So, what do we do when life serves us a big plate of average? How do we respond when we are eating average for breakfast, lunch and dinner everyday? Well, I bet your first thought is to reject it. “I’m not average, you’re average. I was raised to believe for bigger and better. I’m special.” We turn to self help books, we look for programs and podcasts that will continue to affirm the story our mom told us growing up. But none of it actually lines up with reality. We still think really highly of ourselves. Not because we have any ill will or bad motives, we just think really highly of ourselves because that’s what we’ve been taught to do our whole life.
We reject any notion that I’m less than perfect. We actually find it offensive to be average. We cannot stand the thought that we aren’t the center of the universe.
This is true of you, too. Your entire life has been custom designed by society to help you believe lies about yourself. You have been molded to believe in yourself, to tap into your potential, shoot for the moon, and land among the stars. You believe you are better than average.
BUT YOU ARE NOT THAT SPECIAL.
I didn’t say you are not special, I just said you are not “that” special. You are actually pretty average. We all are. That’s how averages work. Most of us don’t deviate too far from the median. With over 7 billion people in the world, it’s really unlikely to come out on top, and that is okay.
Why do we have such a hard time accepting the fact that we are average? Sure everyone is unique, but the very fact that everyone is unique means that we aren’t actually that unique, we are just as unique as the rest of them, which means we fall right into the average. Congratulations, you are just as unique as 7 billion other people.
This is why I say “I’m average and okay with it”
I think one of the biggest challenges of adulthood is getting to the place where you are okay with just being average. It’s kind of odd being surrounded by average 40 year olds who all believe they are so special and are going to make a bigger dent in the world than they already have. Once you get to 40, all this talk about being unique and special and world changing potential, blah blah blah – it just gets old. I’m like, I don’t want to change the world, I just want to feed my kids.
I don’t have to be famous, I’m known enough.
I don’t have to be in a spotlight, I’m comfortable in the shadows.
I don’t have to be at the top, I’m good in the middle of the pack.
Truth is, I’m not that special, and that’s TOTALLY OKAY.
Here’s an interesting quote from the Apostle Paul,
“Because of the privilege and authority God has given me, I give each of you this warning: Don’t think you are better than you really are. Be honest in your evaluation of yourselves, measuring yourselves by the faith God has given us.”
-Romans 12:3
In other words…It is my great privilege today, and God has given me the authority to say it…you’re not that special. Don’t think you are better than you really are. Be honest…
One day you will end up in an average family, married to an average person, with average kids and if you think too highly of yourself – it’ll be complicated. Nothing is worse than a house full of average people who all think too highly of themselves. That’s a recipe for disaster.
One day you will end up in an average job making an average income, but if you think too tightly of yourself it will confuse you because you’ll think everyone owes you something, but the truth is you are entitled to nothing and everything must be earned.
One day you will own an average house with an average car and carry an average debt-load, but if you think too highly of yourself you will go into above average debt trying to buy above average things to impress below average people who think less of you and more about themselves anyway.
You are AVERAGE. And that’s okay.
It’s a mathematical reality that you are an average person.
Everyone can’t be special.
I see adults get into life thinking more highly of themselves than they ought, and they get into a marriage with an average person, and they have an average marriage with average problems, but they’re unhappy because they expected bliss and perfection.
Wives get into marriage thinking their husband is just going to always be looking at them, paying attention to them, available to them at their every beck and call, hanging onto and listening to her every word…but he’s an average guy. He’s not Jesus . And he can’t carry the weight of the messiah in the marriage.
Husbands get into marriage thinking their wife is just to always be looking perfect, cooking, nurturing him, and always available for sex, but he forgets that he’s an average guy, and he acts like an average guy, so why would his above average wife treat him as more than average?
LOL – men, rule number one about marriage is you never call your wife average. Only below average husbands refer to their wives as average. The average guy knows it’s best to say his wife is above average.
- Statistics tell us half of us will get divorced, that sounds pretty average to me.
- Statistics say most of us will die in our 70s, sounds pretty average to me.
- Scripture says we have ALL sinned and fallen short of God’s standards. Sounds pretty average to me.
- Scripture says every man is appointed to die once, and then…the judgement. That sounds pretty average to me.
At that point, after we’ve lived an average life and died an average death, our greatest significance is found in the shadow of a blood stained cross.
According to God’s word, the only thing that will make us stand out to Him as above average is if we have totally surrendered our lives to Jesus Think about it. “In Christ” we are no longer average (1 Peter 5:14; Philippians 1:1; Romans 8:1). When we come to Jesus as average sinners, He exchanges our sin for His above average righteousness (2 Corinthians 5:21).
It’s not because of our exceptional giftedness, but it’s because of our changed minds and hearts, through full acceptance of Jesus’ death on our behalf, that we are even called His children (John 1:12; Galatians 3:26). God no longer sees our average imperfections; He sees the above average righteousness of Jesus instead (Ephesians 2:13; Hebrews 8:12). Because we are “in Christ”, God sees Christ’s righteousness covering us. This means an average person who is resting in the shadow of an above average Christ gets swallowed up in Christ’s glory.
“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come” (2 Corinthians 5:17). Apart from Christ, we are pretty average. But in Christ, everything changes. In Ephesians 1 God “has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places” and we are to “be holy and blameless before God”
This all sounds like some above average stuff to me.
But it’s not because our mom and dad believed in us.
It’s not because we believe in ourselves.
It’s simply because we believe in, live, move, breathe, and thrive in Jesus.
Because of this, God sees me as His handiwork (Psalm 139:13–16); as His friend (James 2:23); and as a chosen one, “holy and beloved” (Colossians 3:12).
I’m average and okay with it.
The only “above averageness” I have is because of Christ.
And I won’t reap the full benefit of that above average-ness until I cross over into eternity.
It seems like the whole world wants to be unique.
We are striving and searching for significance. We want to be seen, known, famous, above average. We work our angles and take our positions – shuffling and striving to be seen.
What if everything we are looking for can only be found in Christ?
Would you be okay with it?
I’m average and okay with it.
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