This year, I’ve been intentionally praying and asking God to reveal to me the areas within me that need healing, refinement, and growth. Not just the obvious flaws or surface-level habits, but the hidden attitudes, the quiet beliefs, the unconscious patterns.
And one of the things He’s been gently but persistently speaking to me about is this:
I tend to undermine my achievements.
I don’t know when it started or how it became second nature, but I often find myself brushing off accomplishments as if they don’t matter. I downplay progress. I rush past moments I should pause to celebrate. I fear that acknowledging my growth might come off as pride.
This tendency, sometimes or maybe most of the time, makes me feel like I haven’t done much. Like I’m behind. Like I’m still waiting for something “bigger” to count.
And I would sometimes even deflect the credit entirely. If I worked on a project with someone, I’d highlight what they did and quietly push my part into the background. I’d say things like, it’s not a big deal, I didn’t even do so much.
But the truth is, it was something. It was more than something. It was obedience. It was showing up. It was God’s wisdom flowing through me.
You see that idea you gave at work that was implemented? That’s a big deal, because God gave you the wisdom to do it. That solution you proposed, that system you improved, that moment you spoke up, those aren’t small. They are signs of grace and evidence of growth.
God is teaching me that false humility isn’t humility at all.
Sometimes it’s fear, fear of being seen, of being misunderstood, of stepping into the fullness of what He has called me to. Sometimes it’s an agreement with the lie that what I do doesn’t matter, or that I need to shrink to be accepted.
But God gets glory in our growth.
When we testify of what He has done in us and through us, when we honour the journey, we’re not boasting in ourselves — we’re acknowledging Him. There’s a holy kind of confidence that pleases God. There’s a way to say, I’m proud of what I did and I’m grateful to God for it, and that’s not pride, that’s perspective.
It is a sin if God told you to fly and you decide you’d rather walk.
Delayed obedience, diminished obedience, or hiding under the banner of humility, it’s still disobedience.
Because true humility isn’t about standing in the background trying not to be noticed. True humility is being exactly who God asks you to be at every particular point in your life. No more, no less.
So for the rest of this year, I’m learning not to shrink.
Not to minimise.
Not to call light dim.
Not to walk when I was born to soar.
Because God didn’t bring me this far for me to pretend like I’m still at the starting line.
And obedience looks like rising into every space He has prepared boldly, humbly, and fully.