Receiving: The Deflection You Do Without Noticing
Someone tells you your work was excellent. What do you say?
For most of us, some version of "oh, it was nothing" comes out before we have thought about it. Or "well, I had a lot of help." Or "you should have seen the mess before I fixed it." Or a laugh. Or a subject change. Or a compliment thrown back at them so we do not have to sit inside theirs.
Whatever the specific words are, the movement is always the same. Push it away. Do not let it land.
This week's theme: Receiving.
Today, the deflection you do without noticing, and what it is quietly costing you spiritually.
We tell ourselves this is humility. It is not.
Real humility, in the biblical sense, is a settled honesty about who you are. It is not putting yourself down. It is not refusing kindness. It is being small enough to receive without needing to balance the scales. That is much harder than deflection, and it looks very different.
Deflection is actually the opposite of humility. Deflection is a subtle form of control. It says, "I will not let you decide how I am seen. I will get in first and lower the reading myself, so that I stay in charge of the narrative about me."
That is not humility. That is management.
And it does not just happen with people. It happens with God.
Read what Jesus said to Peter when Peter tried to refuse Jesus washing his feet.
"Unless I wash you, you have no part with me." - John 13:8
Peter was doing what most of us would have done. He was uncomfortable. His teacher, his Lord, was on the floor at his feet with a towel. Peter tried to refuse. "You shall never wash my feet." It sounded like humility. It felt like humility.
Jesus's response is astonishingly sharp. Unless I wash you, you have no part with me.
Read that again. Refusing to receive from him is refusing him.
That should stop a lot of us in our tracks.
Because we have quietly been thinking that if we deflect his gifts, if we refuse his kindness, if we insist we do not deserve his love, we are being appropriately spiritual. We are being humble. We are being careful not to presume.
Jesus calls that out for what it is. It is not humility. It is a refusal to receive. And if you refuse to receive, you have no part with him. There is no other kind of relationship with him available. The whole thing is built on receiving.
Every time you deflect his love because you do not feel worthy, you are doing what Peter did. Every time you refuse to sit with his forgiveness because you have not paid enough for the failure yet, you are doing what Peter did. Every time you say "I need to sort myself out first before I come back to God," you are Peter with the towel at his feet, saying no.
The healing of this pattern is not to change your feelings about whether you deserve his gifts. You will never feel like you deserve them. That is the whole point.
The healing is to receive them anyway. Awkwardly. Without adjusting the reading of yourself. Without balancing the scales. Just letting the gift land, and saying thank you.
Peter, to his credit, learned. His next line was "Lord, not just my feet but my hands and my head as well." Once he understood that receiving was not optional, he went all in.
Do what Peter eventually did. Stop deflecting. Let him wash you.
YOUR ONE THING FOR TODAY
The next time someone offers you a kindness, hold your tongue for two seconds before responding. Then say "thank you." No deflection. No qualifier. No returned compliment to balance it. Just "thank you." Practice on people. Then practice with God.
A PRAYER FOR TODAY
Father, forgive me for the ways I have refused you while calling it humility. Give me the courage of Peter's second sentence. Wash me. Not just my feet. Whatever you want to wash. I will not push you away anymore. Amen.
OVER TO YOU
What is one gift from God you have been deflecting because you do not feel worthy? A word or a line. Every reply held with care.
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God bless you, my friend.
The LowKey Christian
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