Wouldn’t it be great to have people actually listen to you, especially when you really need them to?  Whether team members, family members, or any group member, it’s frustrating and discouraging when people either write off our suggestions or don’t even hear them to begin with!

Likewise, situations and tasks can frustrate you when you encounter blockage.  Something stands in the way of you getting from “here” to “there” or achieving your goal. You can’t open the jar. The car won’t start and you have to get to work (before the boss yells at you).  Your computer freezes up in the middle of creating an important document and the deadline looms near.  Your internet goes out during one of those now-common video-conferences with a major client.  You get the idea.

Sometimes that “something” is some-ONE—a person blocking the doorway to fulfillment, effectiveness, growth, etc.

You need leverage—a way to get that thing or person to MOVE in the direction it/they need to, for maximum advantage. Hopefully your motives are unselfish here and you seek that leverage for the greater good of everyone concerned!

How do you get that?  How do you get containers to open, things to start, that thing fixed?  And perhaps more relevant to your deeper need, how do you get PEOPLE to open their hearts to you and your ideas, get them to start, and get your relationship with them “fixed” so they’re your allies instead of adversaries?

One word—HUMILITY.

I discovered this truth last week just before breakfast on a work-day.  The reason it was before breakfast was that the flour-bin had become empty and we needed more flour.  Unfortunately my husband and I only found that out when I went to make pancakes. 

Granted, we could have opted for cereal.  But it was pancake/waffle day, and we didn’t want to settle for less than the best. 

Back to the empty flour-bin. Easy solution—go down to the de-humidified basement, get wheat-berries out of the container, and grind fresh flour with the mill I’d recently bought (Covid-era solution for healthy-flour shortages).

Only one problem—the well-sealed container wouldn’t open.  It’s designed that way to keep the wheat-berries fresh and bug-free.  Normally I feel glad it’s so well-sealed.  But well-sealed also, in this case, means extremely-difficult-to-open! 

With time ticking away and our stomachs growling away, I endeavored to open the container to extract those urgently-needed wheat-berries, but to no avail.  Bending over, from a standing position, I couldn’t pry it open, not even from the corner.

Knowing that brute force wouldn’t work (I’m not that kind of person anyway), I didn’t attempt to throw a 25lb. bucket of “berries” across the room to open it.  Neither did I panic, having learned that panic produces random acts of ineffective action that only lead to a vicious cycle of further frustration, panic, and ineffectiveness.

So I took a deep breath, prayed a quick prayer (yes, the Lord cares about breakfast), and stopped to think of a solution.

It came right away—I knelt down on the hard floor (painful for my non-padded knees)—hands at the SAME LEVEL as the top of the container—and was able to pry open a corner and scoop out the wheat berries—enough for our breakfast and much more (the rest put into a large Tupperware in the kitchen).   

Along with the “berries”, the flour, and the satisfying breakfast, came the lesson on leverage: 

Kneeling down gave me leverage.  Kneeling down both demonstrates and symbolizes humility. 

–>Humility gives us leverage! 

“Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves.”  Phil. 2:3

Yes, it can often be inconvenient, bothersome, and even painful.  It puts us lower than we’d like to be.  But it also puts us in the best and often only position to “leverage” a situation, task, goal, even a person– to 1) Get the  (perhaps urgently) needed, results;  and 2) Open things and people up.

Let’s face it, some people are like well-sealed containers.  Reserved.  Skeptical.  Hard to persuade.  It’s often not comfortable to deal with that kind of person.  But we need them—in society, families, companies, etc.  They’re the guardians who protect us from corruption, going bad, and harmful elements that would eat away at our group like a grain-bug in a sack of flour.   

Pride and arrogance won’t open their hearts—they’ll just like and trust us less.

Arguing won’t work—they’ll just get defensive and close up more.

And I certainly don’t recommend trying to throw them across the room!

Try humility.  Go to them, sincerely praise them for their reasoned-caution, and present your case in a way that respects their concerns. Don’t talk down to them. Speak with them as a trusted peer whose opinion matters (even if they’re in a position “under” you).

Watch what happens.  They may only give a little, in the corner.  But the leverage you gain from that will lead to more leverage and more openness.

It works.  I’ve seen it work.  Just as well as it worked for making breakfast work in our house last week 🙂