Sinfulness and Smallness

“A sinner saved by grace.”  That’s typically how we’ve understood ourselves.  In Western Christianity, we’ve been taught that our great need is for God’s forgiveness due to our sinfulness.  We tend to understand God’s love in terms of mercy.  We have rebelled, made a mess of our lives, and now need a savior to rescue us from what we’ve done.  Of course, this is all 100% true.  It is a biblical picture of our situation.  And yet I wonder if there might be other ways to think of ourselves in relation to God.  Rather than seeing ourselves as sinful people, it might also help us to think of ourselves as small people.

The problem with seeing my sin as the whole issue is that it puts me at the center of the universe.  It makes me the focus of God’s work. The world and God’s work revolve around me.  But when I understand myself in terms of my smallness, I begin on the margins of importance.  I am overwhelmed that the God of the universe would even be aware of me, let alone care for me.  Think about this little speck of dirt we call Earth in a vast galaxy in a vast universe - too vast to even imagine.  Is it more remarkable that God would forgive us when we were his enemies?  Or even bother to consider us in the first place?  We’re really not that big of a deal.  Still, in our smallness, the God of the universe sent his own Son to live among us.  It is miraculous that God would show mercy to us when we rebelled against him.  Perhaps it is even more miraculous that God bothers with us at all.