You're Nobody Special

Recently my kids showed me a Bluey episode that they like called The Library. In it, Bluey and Bingo’s cousin Muffin comes to their house to play. On the way, Muffin’s dad tells Muffin, “Muffin, you are the most special kid in the whole world!” With this new knowledge, Muffin decides she doesn’t have to play by any of the rules of her cousins in their game of “library.” When Bluey complains, her mom tells her to let Muffin play how she wants. Muffin ends up stealing things from others, making lots of noise, taking all of the books without returning them, and ruining the game for everyone else. She declares, “Everyone else has to return them but I get to keep them. Because I am the most special kid in the world.” When Bluey and Bingo complain again to their mom and Muffin’s dad, they repeat this assertion and Muffin’s dad finally intervenes. He tells Muffin, “You know how I said you are the most special kid in the world? Well, you’re not. I mean you are to me and your mom…. But you are probably not special to everyone else. So, you have to follow the same rules as everyone.” Muffin declares to Bluey that she’s not special anymore and the problem is resolved. Much of the world’s problems indeed come from those who believe they are “special” like Muffin did. We could all use more of the attitude of Moses when he declared after seeing the grandeur of God and His creations, “Man is nothing” (Moses 1:10). And because man is nothing compared to the glory of God, we must submit ourselves to following His commandments no matter who we think we are.  

                About fifteen years ago President Uchtdorf spoke about this verse and asserted, “We are less than we suppose.” He said, “The more we learn about the universe, the more we understand—at least in a small part—what Moses knew. The universe is so large, mysterious, and glorious that it is incomprehensible to the human mind…. Given the vastness of God’s creations, it’s no wonder the great King Benjamin counseled his people to ‘always retain in remembrance, the greatness of God, and your own nothingness.’” King Benjamin also spoke of being awakened to “a sense of your nothingness, and your worthless and fallen state” as we “come to a knowledge of the goodness of God, and his matchless power, and his wisdom, and his patience, and his long-suffering towards the children of men” (Mosiah 4:5-6). He also put our place in position to God in perspective with these words, “I say unto you that if ye should serve him who has created you from the beginning, and is preserving you from day to day, by lending you breath, that ye may live and move and do according to your own will, and even supporting you from one moment to another—I say, if ye should serve him with all your whole souls yet ye would be unprofitable servants” (Mosiah 2:21). We are nothing compared to Him, and pride and rationalization get us in trouble when we instead think that we are something “special.”

                I have been reading The Horse and His Boy by C.S. Lewis from The Chronicles of Narnia to my children lately, and an incident with the talking horse Bree highlights this principle. With the young boy Shasta on his back, he was traveling to Narnia with another talking horse Hwin who carried the girl named Aravis. Bree was very proud of his abilities and being a war horse and because of this he was a bit condescending to the others on the journey. But in a critical moment when a lion was chasing them, Bree ran for his life while Shasta jumped off him to try to save Aravis and Hwin. After the traumatic event, Bree was horrified with his actions. He lamented, “Slavery is all I’m fit for. How can I ever show my face among the free Horses of Narnia?—I who left a mare and a girl and a boy to be eaten by lions while I galloped all I could to save my own wretched skin!” They were at the lodging of the hermit, who came and said this to Bree, “My good Horse, you’ve lost nothing but your self-conceit. No, no, cousin. Don’t put back your ears and shake your mane at me. If you are really so humbled as you sounded a minute ago, you must learn to listen to sense. You’re not quite the great Horse you had come to think, from living among poor dumb horses. Of course you were braver and cleverer than them. You could hardly help being that. It doesn’t follow that you’ll be anyone very special in Narnia. But as long as you know you’re nobody special, you’ll be a very decent sort of Horse, on the whole, and taking one thing with another.” His problem came from believing he was “special” compared to the others. But if he could truly believe that he was not “anyone very special in Narnia” he would be just fine. In the same manner, we need to lose our own conceit and truly approach others and the Lord with humility. Alma’s words invite us this way: “But that ye would humble yourselves before the Lord, and call on his holy name, and watch and pray continually, that ye may not be tempted above that which ye can bear, and thus be led by the Holy Spirit, becoming humble, meek, submissive, patient, full of love and all long-suffering” (Alma 13:28). Meekness, submissiveness, patience, love, long-suffering, and humility—those are the things that will lead us to a joyful life with others, knowing we are nothing special because all of us are beloved children of Him.