It was an event that had been a long time in the planning, and those responsible had planned well. Nearly a year ago I agreed to travel to another city to speak at a conference for single adults – and when the week arrived, I felt prayed-up and ready to go. There were four other speakers on the agenda – and I was most decidedly NOT the star attraction. Others whose names were readily recognized were slated to speak before me, and I was glad.

Well – I was glad until I saw them illuminated on a gi-normous (that’s giant + enormous) big screen behind the podium while each of them spoke. Not that they didn’t look great. They did. What unnerved me was that in a few short hours, I’d be that big and looming down on my real, smaller self – and I didn’t want to be super-sized in front of a lot of people I didn’t know. (Who would, really?)

The screen (and its intimidating size) reminded me that sometimes we project the people on the podium to be larger-than-life…and they’re not. I’m not. We’re all flawed and a little fragile and sometimes afraid. But we have a very big God. My job, as I see it, is to point to Him and say, “Look at Him. Isn’t He something?”

The night before my turn on big-TV, I very carefully arched my eyebrows. (Okay, I’m human.) And I thought more than I might have about how well my clothes fit. But here’s the great thing: once I stood up, I never looked back. (I wanted to say in a booming voice, a la The Wizard of Oz, “Pay no attention to the twenty foot talking torso behind me.”)

“Big me” was at my back, and I could only hope she wasn’t too distracting. Because “mini-me” had something to say on behalf of great-big God, and I didn’t want anyone to mistake the show for the message. We do that sometimes. We super-size the messenger and shrink the message. We applaud the speaker and forget the Word. We think too much of ourselves, and far, far too little of Him.

As painful as it was to be super-sized, I’m glad for the uncomfortable experience. It reminded me that there is a downside to being made “big.” And that there is only One Who is meant to be high and lifted up. It’s not me. It will never be me. It was ever Him, and always will be. I’m so grateful that it’s so.

“But may it never be that I should boast, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.” Galatians 6:14, NASB

“For Thou art the LORD, Most High over all the earth; Thou art exalted far above all gods…” Psalm 97:9, NASB