Have you ever heard of the phrase “Big Fish in a Small Pond?” It refers to a time or place when a particular person is much more gifted at a particular activity than the people he or she competes against, and as such, gets an inflated view of their ability as a whole. The implication is that one day they’ll get a dose of reality when they leave the pond and start facing real competition. Think about the High School football hero that flamed out in college; he was probably a big fish in a small pond. What’s particularly about cases like this is how their personality handles the shift. People often times find prosperous athletes, baseball players included, to be hard to deal with. They have primadonna complexes, and treat everyone around them as lesser status, even if they’ve done nothing to earn that status. It’s like these people have been told their whole lives that they’re special and unique snowflakes, and that they deserve to be treated special. Unfortunately, the reality is that many of these people have been told just that.

Genesis 37:5-8

Now Joseph had a dream, and when he told it to his brothers they hated him even more. He said to them, “Hear this dream that I have dreamed: Behold, we were binding sheaves in the field, and behold, my sheaf arose and stood upright. And behold, your sheaves gathered around it and bowed down to my sheaf.” His brothers said to him, “Are you indeed to reign over us? Or are you indeed to rule over us?” So they hated him even more for his dreams and for his words.

As we can see, this sort of primadonna complex isn’t anything new, though in this case Joseph actually was being told by God himself that he was something special. This doesn’t change the reality of how the world is going to see people like that though; being told you’re inferior because of something beyond everyone’s control isn’t fun. Joseph’s brothers resented him, conspired to kill him, and eventually sold him to slavery. They only recanted later on after Joseph had become a completely different person many years later. As children of God, we’re also told we’re something special. We’re told that we have a place in the Kingdom of Heaven, and that God has set us apart. That’s not going to be easily digested by the people of the world, so we have to take a lesson from the Big Fishes and the Josephs of the world. Let us act humbly and with service in our hearts if we want to reach the world for Christ. Jesus commanded the first to be last; not the first to proclaim himself as first and wait for everyone else to do everything for him. Likewise, have a little tolerance today for someone in your life who can’t get enough of themself; they’ve likely had someone in their ear telling them how special they are for a very long time. Be servant to all, and take pride only in what God has done and given to us, and we can rest assured that we’ll be in the right state of mind.