Don’t Bug Out

From my experiences, many of which I have shared in this blog, I think God sees the need to serve me some humble pie fairly frequently. My recent experience in church was so funny, all we could do was laugh – and snap a picture to share at my expense, of course. 

We are attending one of the Christmas services at our local church and the church is at almost capacity. We hustle in early as we anticipated a large crowd and get in our usual spot on the second row. Most Sundays, we have family members joining us on what I call “Cole pew.” (Please don’t share that with my in-laws.)

Today, we have Aunt Kate Cole and my mother-in-law Happy Cole sitting on either side of CeCe and me on “Cole” pew. They both use mobile walkers and after helping them to their seats, I take the walkers to the back and park them out of the way. 

What a wonderful Christmas service and I feel so much joy in celebrating the birth of Jesus. As we prepare to sing the final hymn, I realize with this overflow crowd, I need to grab those walkers. I ease to the back of the church and grab the two walkers. Walking both of them down the aisle to the very front of the church, I park one on the end of the front row and one on the other end. Rather than ease back to my seat, I decide to just stand here on the very front row. 

As we are singing the last verse of our hymn, I feel CeCe pulling on the back of my pants. “What is this?” I hear as I look behind me. Stuck to my pants is this large, VERY STICKY bug catcher. I realize I am not only standing in front of half the church, but I have also just walked down the aisle with this bug catcher attached to me and it doesn’t even coordinate with my sports coat. Ha! I am so embarrassed as I hear CeCe saying, “That’s the bug catcher, you must have leaned against it on the back wall.” Just great! We are looking at each other and just start laughing. 

Then, of course, CeCe snaps this picture to complete my humiliation with tears rolling down our cheeks from laughter. Yes, it’s a lesson at my expense—stay away from sticky bug catchers in church. But seriously, each of us can be better leaders and better team members when we learn to laugh at ourselves. It’s easy to take ourselves too seriously. It’s easy to forget how powerful it is to be humble so we learn, influence and connect more.

How can each of us make an attitude of humbleness stick to us this week?