Keeping Satisfaction: Making Ourselves Small to Make Our Souls Large

Most people want to enlarge their spirit. They want to lessen irritations at daily nuisances. Out-of-control tempers long for calm. A society awash in ads designed to heighten the desire to search for a measure of contentment.

How do you enlarge your soul to live a life of peace and satisfaction, regardless of the circumstances you find yourself in?

Carl Boberg understood its source.

He loved to hike in the hills and valleys of his native Swedish coast. He walked to the church meeting place two miles away. One day, a thunderstorm engulfed him as he made his way home.

Lightning stretched its spidery tendrils across the sky, and thunder kettle drums beat a booming warning.

He stood there in awe of it.

So the 25-year-old, dripping wet, sat down to capture his thoughts in what would become a Christian hymn beloved by generations.

Oh Lord, my God

When I, in awesome wonder

Consider all the worlds Thy hands have made

I see the stars, I hear the rolling thunder

Thy power throughout the universe displayed

Then sings my soul, my Savior God to Thee

How great Thou art, how great Thou art

Then sings my soul, my Savior God to Thee

How great Thou art, how great Thou art!

The only way to make your soul large is to make yourself small.

Most of us need to puff up our needs and importance. Hatred is a form of “I am more important than you are.” Our politically poisoned culture uses the social media tools of denigration, labeling, and condemnation. After all, if we can make someone small, we can appear large in comparison.

When you decrease yourself, you discover joy and satisfaction in life. Your proper size will create an expansive spirit.

But how does that happen? Is it wallowing in self-deprecation? Is it the milquetoast attitude of worthless feelings?

David can point us in the right direction. He points up.

Psalm 8 is wet with the meadow’s dew. The shepherd took his place in the field beside his flock. As he did, the stellar show began. The sky was awash with the glories of galaxies.

So he asks a question:

“When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him?” (Psalm 8:3–4, ESV)

How can it be that I count when you see the majesty above? He sees himself in proper size, a a slight morsel in a celestial banquet.

Yet, he also understood who and what he was came from the gracious hand of God.

“Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor. You have given him dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under his feet,” (Psalm 8:5–6 ESV)

David came away with perspective. He was small compared to God’s handiwork, but God made him great.

Your soul becomes large when we make ourselves small. How do we do it today?

Experience awe. When I was a boy, we did not have light pollution so that you could see the stars. Drive to the country or the mountains and stare at the wonders. Walk at daylight or dusk. Sit and watch the sun rise or set. You realize the world’s rhythms are not in your control. Soak in the awe.

Examine yourself in comparison. Did you make the sun rise or set? Do you place the stars or spin the galaxies? Do your children laugh because you are mighty?

Drop the need to make your wants and needs so central. God provides for all things. None of us are as important as we think we are. None of us are as worthless as others think.

Exalt in the blessings. Gratitude is not a word but an attitude. Every experience of life adds to the tapestry. Thank God for the good, for it enriches, and for the bad, for it teaches. Everything is a gift, from the breath you draw to the child you hold to your job.

Remember, you did not make the world, but the Creator cares for you.

Then your soul will expand as your ego shrinks. Only then will you experience joy.