I was served a nice slice of humble pie this week and it tasted just as bad as I remembered it tasting.

Before I relaunched the blog at the beginning of January I would average around 30 views per post on here. After the relaunch, I was averaging about 40 or so views per day. I remember thinking that it was cool to have more people reading regularly.

Then, on January 14, out of the blue 86 people showed up to ready post about what we did for a snow day. Friends retweeted me and passed along what I had to say. As great as it felt to have 40 people reading, having 86 felt even cooler. I know I’m not the best or most interesting writer but hey, if people want to show up and read I’m definitely not going to be sad about it.

The next week I went back down closer to my average of 40 but the average had grown. That week i averaged 45 views per week. Not as good as 86 but growing slowly and starting to gain momentum.

Last Monday (the 24th), I started right where I left off the week before and had 46 views. The next day I jumped to 77. I was feeling good. The next day was a day I remember checking the stats over and over and watching them grow and grow. It set a new record on here and I had 173 views, more than I would have in entire weeks some weeks. Thursday was 65 views and Friday was 96.

In my mind, I had arrived.

I was starting to get to where I wanted to be as a blogger.

I finally had an audience.

And then this week happened.

I posted on Monday and had 35 views. Tuesday had 45. Wednesday 24 and Thursday 22.

Ouch.

So much for arriving or having an audience or anything like that.

To be completely honest, as much as I want to have a blog that people love to read and come to daily and all of that, I think I needed a week like this week. I needed a reminder that I’m just some 24-year-old kid and while I have some good ideas and am a decent writer, you don’t “arrive” overnight or by getting something you wrote published on another website.

You get there by hard work.

You get there by being persistent.

You get there by trying over and over and maybe even failing a few times.

By nature, I’m a prideful and arrogant kid who is a little too smart for his own good. I figure that I know how to do most things a little better than the “average” person and think that because of that I can reach higher levels on my own. I think that I can do it all myself without the need to ask others for help or to rely on God to provide. Me is all I need.

Last week in my small group we prayed that God would show up to us in some way throughout this week. I wrote Wednesday about God coming closer to me at Crossroad on Monday night but I think it was through this whole process that God really showed up to me. He reminded me that when I get a big head and think I’ve arrived that I turn away from him and think it’s all about me. That’s not the way that I expected God to answer that prayer, but it was the way that I needed him to answer that prayer.

God doesn’t always show up in the way that we want him to.

But he always shows up in the way that we need him to.

And he knows what we need more than we know what we want.