Small Enough to Be Awed: Humility and the Kingdom of God
When Familiarity Replaces Awe
If you’ve spent much time in the Gospels, you know the disciples weren’t spiritually superhuman. They loved Jesus, they followed Him, they believed in Him and, yet, they struggled — especially with humility. At one point they came to Jesus and asked, “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?”
This sounds an awful lot like one adolescent asking another, “Am I your best friend?” There’s insecurity in it, a bit of competition, and it conveys a desire to know just where they stand.
Jesus could have rebuked them, but instead He called a child over, placed the child in front of them, and said,
“Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.”
Those words would have stunned the disciples. After all, they’d walked with Jesus day and night. They’d watched Him heal the sick, calm storms, and raise the dead. Peter had recently confessed, “You are the Christ” and yet here they were asking who’s greatest — essentially asking, “Which one of us matters most?”
You don’t talk to the Son of God that way unless familiarity has dulled wonder and proximity has bred callousness. These things happen when humility has been lost.
Still, Jesus doesn’t shame them. Instead, he went straight to the heart of the problem: He told them they’d lost childlike humility — and with it, their capacity for awe. And, it’s the connection between humility and awe I’d like us to consider.
Why Humility Makes Awe Possible
Humility doesn’t mean thinking poorly of yourself. It doesn’t mean denying your gifts or pretending you’re worthless. Humility means seeing yourself clearly — Charles Spurgeon said humility involved “making a right estimate of oneself.” Not too high. Not too low. Just honest.
Meanwhile, awe is what we experience when we encounter something so big, beautiful, or unexpected that it overwhelms our ability to explain it. It’s a mix of wonder, reverence, and, sometimes, fear. We experience awe when we stand at the precipice of the Grand Canyon, hold a newborn, or look up at a night sky that seems endless. Awe reminds us we’re not the center of the universe — and that’s part of what makes it wonderful.
The disciples weren’t experiencing awe in the moment they asked their question; asking who’s greatest isn’t awe-filled behavior. It’s casual. It’s self-focused. It’s small.
I don’t believe we can experience awe unless we’re humble. Awe requires recognizing something is bigger than us and the ability to admit it. If we’re always exaggerating our importance — always at the center of our own story — there’s no room for awe. That’s why Jesus connected the disciples’ problem to childlike humility. They’d lost their awe because they’d lost their humility.
Honestly, so have we.
We live in a culture that trains us to promote ourselves, protect ourselves, brand ourselves, and put ourselves first. Humility is considered a weakness in a world like this, but, without humility, awe becomes impossible and, without awe, life becomes small.
When was the last time we were truly awed? Not mildly impressed, not briefly interested, but genuinely stunned? If it’s been a while, it’s not because awe-worthy things have disappeared; it’s because we’ve lost the ability to see them and this may be due to the fact that we’re not estimating ourselves rightly. In short, it’s probably because we’ve lost our humility.
Jesus said his disciples needed to become like children and that would have shocked them because, in that culture, children had no status or power. Nonetheless, Jesus said the child was “the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.”
He said this because He knew that children naturally estimate themselves rightly. Children know that, in a great big world, they’re small and they’re okay with that. And because of that, they’re constantly awed. Children are amazed by bugs, clouds, shadows, sticks, and puddles. Everything is new. Everything is big. Everything is meaningful.
I’m not suggesting that adults should be amazed by every ant or blade of grass — though maybe we should be more than we are. But we should be awed by the universe we inhabit.
If you could travel at the speed of light, it would still take about 100,000 years to cross our galaxy, and the Milky Way Galaxy is just one of roughly two trillion galaxies in the observable universe. This should humble us, it should silence us, and it should move us to awe — but it doesn’t. We cannot experience awe because we have failed to estimate ourselves rightly. We have become so focused on building little kingdoms and defending little identities that we have lost the capacity to be undone by the vastness of reality.
Fortunately, Scripture consistently shows us that humility opens the door to awe. For example, after God promised to establish his throne forever, David responded, “Who am I, O Lord God, and what is my house, that you have brought me this far?” David had estimated himself rightly — he was humble — and because he was, he was open to awe.
Then, in Psalm 8, David looked up at the night sky and felt small.
“O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth.”
He followed by asking,
“What is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him?”
Basically, he’s asking why God even took notice of him. David was stunned that the God who made the heavens would give any attention to creatures as small and fragile as we are, but, ironically, in acknowledging his insignificance, David found significance.
It’s important to understand that genuine humility doesn’t say, “I am nothing.” That’s false humility. Nor does genuine humility say, “I am everything.” That’s pride. Genuine humility says — just as David did in Psalm 8 — “I am small, yet crowned.” It says, “I am frail, yet favored” and “I am dust, yet dignified.” The humility that prompted an awareness of his insignificance opened David to awe and, in his awe, he found significance.
David ends the psalm the same way he began: “O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth.” Initially, it sounded like praise, but, at the end, it sounds like a whisper — the kind that comes after encountering something too big for words. And, this movement from humility to awe to worship isn’t just David’s story, it’s meant to be ours as well.
Why We Struggle to Believe We Matter
Still, we struggle with this …
We struggle to accept how small we are in the universe because everything tells us to make ourselves large — to assert ourselves, brand ourselves, prove ourselves, and protect ourselves. We struggle to rest in God’s declaration of our significance because everything in our hearts tells us we have to earn our significance. As a result, we chase significance through our careers, our relationships, our influence, and our pleasures. Unfortunately, no matter how much we accomplish, it never feels like enough.
Psychologists identify significance as a basic human need. We want to know we matter. We want to know we’re seen. We want to know our lives count. Psalm 8 says we’re significant, but it’s not because we’ve earned it or achieved it. Instead, Psalm 8 says something radically different: we are significant because God says we are significant. We are significant because the Creator of the universe has chosen to care about us.
Our significance isn’t self-created, it’s God-given and, if we truly understand this, we are freed from both pride and insecurity. Our pride insists that we’re significant because we’re better than others and our insecurity tells us that we’re insignificant because we are not enough. Psalm 8 says that we are significant because God loves us.
Becoming Small Enough for the Kingdom
When Jesus set a child in front of His disciples and said, “Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven,” He wasn’t calling the disciples to be childish, but childlike. He wasn’t saying children are innocent or morally perfect. He was simply pointing out that children know where they stand and they don’t expend time and energy trying to prove their worth. Children know they’re small and they welcome the love and care they’re offered. Children know the world is big. Because they know these things — because they have humility — they’re open to awe.
The disciples, on the other hand, were trying to rank themselves, secure their place, and protect their status. They lacked humility and, in turn, they’d lost their ability to experience awe. And, because the kingdom of heaven isn’t built on self-exaltation, but on trust, dependence, humility, and the ability to experience awe, Jesus said they’d “never enter the kingdom of heaven.”
Our problem isn’t lack of confidence or low self-esteem; it’s misplaced significance. We try to manufacture worth instead of receiving it. We try to prove we matter instead of accepting that we matter. We try to build identity instead of resting in a God-given identity. The result is physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual exhaustion.
Psalm 8, though, offers rest.
“You are enough — not because of who you are, but because of whose you are.”
“You matter — not because of what you’ve done, but because God has declared you significant.”
“You are small — and you are loved.”
All this leads to a simple invitation: Stop striving to be great and start learning to be small again. When we do, humility will make room for awe, awe will lead us to worship, and we can finally rest in the quiet, steady truth that we are small- and deeply, wonderfully loved.