August 19th, 2026

Go ahead and toot your own horn

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​What is the light God has placed in you to inspire or encourage others?
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This was the journaling prompt that greeted me as I neared the end of my devotional reading for the day. The first thing that came to mind was this thought, which I wrote in my journal: The light God has placed in me to shine is the light of God’s unconditional love for us just as we are—the light that leads us back home to God’s love again and again.

As I continued to reflect on God’s light shining uniquely through each of us, I thought of a former directee—I’ll call her Cheryl—and something her mom said to her when she was a child that had kept her from "shining" for much of her life.

One day when young Cheryl brought a piece of artwork she had created to her mom, excited to show it to her, her mother said, “Don’t toot your own horn.”
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Her mother no doubt intended to teach her humility. But instead, those words left Cheryl doubting whether it was okay to celebrate what she had created—to be proud of something she had done, to let her light shine.

Decades later, Cheryl was finally experiencing something very different: God’s joy and delight in her. She was beginning to see herself as God’s uniquely wonderful creation—worthy of love, affirmation, and celebration simply because she was God’s beloved.

I’ve come to believe that knowing ourselves as deeply loved and uniquely gifted by God is essential to genuine humility.

Humility isn’t thinking less of ourselves. It is seeing ourselves truthfully. It is recognizing both our gifts and our limitations, knowing that everything we are and everything we have is grace. And when we can receive and honor the gifts God has given us, we are better able to recognize and celebrate the gifts in others.

Why, then, do we sometimes confuse humility with making ourselves smaller?

Perhaps some of us grew up with an understanding of Christianity that emphasized our unworthiness more than our belovedness. We learned that we are sinners—and there is no question that we sin—but somehow we missed the essential truth that we are first and foremost God’s beloved children, created intentionally and uniquely in love. Our sin is real, but it is not the deepest truth about who we are. God's love is the foundation of our identity.

Others of us may have grown up hearing a strong message of grace, yet somehow the cultural emphasis on achievement and performance seeped into our spirituality. Without realizing it, we began to live as though we had to earn God's favor—or work hard to maintain it. We may have believed that God's love was freely given while still relating to God as though our standing or blessing depended on how well (or how often) we prayed, served, obeyed, or measured up.

When our deepest identity is rooted in inadequacy, unworthiness, or shame, we can spend our lives striving to prove that we are enough—to God, to others, and even to ourselves.

But when we begin to know ourselves as beloved, something changes. We become more secure in who we are. We no longer have to compete for love or prove our worth. We become freer to live into the uniquely beautiful individuals God created us to be.

And when we know that everyone else is beloved, too, we no longer have to diminish ourselves in order to lift them up—or diminish them in order to feel good about ourselves. Instead, we can celebrate one another. We all can shine  as God intends us to, as Jesus reminds us in Matthew 5:14-16.

I believe one of the twelve disciples truly got this—the one called "the beloved disciple" in John's gospel.

I used to think there was something almost arrogant about this disciple—traditionally thought to be John—referring to himself as the “beloved disciple.” But now I see it differently. Perhaps the beloved disciple wasn't claiming to be loved more than the others. Perhaps he was simply brave enough to name what was true of himself: I am beloved. 

This deeply secure disciple knew himself as beloved, and perhaps that security in Christ helped make him free enough to bear witness to the love he had received. He let his light shine. He tooted his own horn.

Somewhere along the way as I grew up, I internalized the idea that I had to be careful not to be “too much”—too excited, too energetic, too joyful, too enthusiastic, too eager, too anything—or “not enough”—not smart enough, pretty enough, cool enough, or fill-in-the-blank enough.

Instead, I learned to perform and please—to be what others expected me to be, and often to do what others were doing. It was my way of feeling safe, secure, and accepted—of earning and maintaining approval.

But it came at a cost. In trying not to be too much or too little, I became less of who I truly was. Much of my creativity, passion, and uniqueness went underground as I focused, often subconsciously, on fitting in and measuring up.

Over time, God began setting me free from those old patterns and coping mechanisms and leading me into greater freedom in Christ—back home to my authentic self and to my identity as God’s beloved. And God continues to set me free. There are still places where I find myself slipping back into old patterns of performing, pleasing, comparing, or trying to be what I think others want me to be. But I’m getting better at recognizing those patterns and, with God’s grace, choosing freedom—to receive God’s love, trust who God created me to be, and let more of my true self emerge.

That is why I’m so passionate about companioning others on this same journey: the journey home to God's love and our belovedness. The journey home to being delighted in and celebrated for who we are, not for what we do.

The flowers in my backyard garden are a beautiful reminder of this for me.

A lily doesn’t try to be a zinnia, and a black-eyed Susan doesn’t try to be a petunia. Each simply blooms as it was created to bloom, in its own time and in its own way.

And one flower’s beauty doesn’t diminish another’s.

The lily doesn’t need the zinnia to be less beautiful in order for the lily to shine. The black-eyed Susan doesn't need to compete with the petunia. Each contributes its own particular beauty to the garden.

I believe this is something God wants us to learn, too.

We don’t have to be less of ourselves so someone else can shine. And we don’t have to shine brighter than someone else to prove that our own light matters.

Each of us bears something of the beauty and love of our Creator simply by being the uniquely beloved person God created us to be.

So, what is the light God has placed in you? 

What gifts and graces has God given you to share? 

What parts of yourself have you been taught are “too much” or “not enough”—and what might happen if you stopped trying to make yourself something other than who you are?

God invites us to embrace our belovedness, to recognize and celebrate the gifts and graces we've been given, and to let our light shine—the light of God shining uniquely through each of us.

So, go ahead and toot the horn God gave you!

As you do, you may begin to hear the unique horns of everyone around you. Instead of competing to be heard, we can learn to play together in beautiful harmony.

You see, everybody has an instrument to play in God’s band. And when we each play the part we were created to play—shining as the uniquely designed and deeply loved individuals we are—we make beautiful music together.
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Music that reflects the love of our Creator.
Music that changes hearts and lives.
Music that leads us all back home to love—again and again.