Pride and Humility: As Taught by a 3 Year Old. Advent Day 17. December 17, 2013.

During the summer months I teach swimming,

mainly to little kids.

If you know me,

you would know this because of the major raccoon tan on my face from my sunglasses.

It’s pretty stellar.

Anyways, aside from the awesome tan on my face,

my swim kids bless me with hardcore lessons almost each day.

I have a little boy in my level one class that is the neatest little thing.

He is 3,

he doesn’t stop talking, yet he listens to everything I say

because he can repeat anything that I ask him to in his little raspy voice.

He has the greatest support system.

His two older brothers watch his whole swim lesson

telling him what a great job he is doing

and his mom gives him a thumbs up every time he does what is asked of him.

It’s the coolest thing to see.

But he has done more than killed me with cuteness;

he has taught me the difference between pride and being proud.

He has done this because his little 3 year old self doesn’t have the arrogance to be prideful;

he is just honest.  

I was holding his belly,

asking him to kick,

and make big ice cream scoops with his arms.

As he was swimming,

I was telling him he was doing a great job and that his scoops looked really big.

He was moving his arms so meticulously

that he was shaking because he was trying to make his scoops look perfect.

At one point as his was scooping and stretching his arms out so far

and he looked at me and said in his little 3 year old macho-man raspy voice,

“I TOWWW TUH-WRONGGGGG!!”

In normal people speak, this translates as,

“I SO STRONG!!”

I couldn’t help but laugh and support his claim that, yes, he was so strong.

Aside from being funny,

his comment taught me an important lesson:

there is a difference between pride and being proud.

Sometimes the difference is slight and the line may be blurry

but the difference is present.

The difference seems to lie in our intent.

As a little 3 year old,

his motive was not arrogance or pride.

His motive was simply sharing and using his talent of being strong.

Though he is but little, he has inspired me

and taught me that one’s motive can speak volumes more than one’s actions.

He has proved to me that we can be proud of our gifts and talents without being prideful.

May we all learn to humbly use our gifts and be proud of our talents; all for His glory.