I didn’t expect Below Deck Mediterranean to remind me of Jesus.

But this week, I watched Aesha (the chief steward) step away from the position she knew and take on the role of a deckhand for the good of the boat.

She went from leading a team in the interior to working through the middle of the night, learning how to tie ropes and throw lines.

And she did it with so much joy.

There was no sulking about the change in status. No sense that the work was beneath her. No constant need to remind everyone that she was usually the chief stew.

She just stepped down and served.

It was such a simple but compelling display of leadership. The kind we rarely celebrate because it doesn’t look particularly impressive. It doesn’t demand attention. It doesn’t fight to remain important.

It just asks: What does the boat need from me right now?

Honestly, it reminded me of Jesus.

The one who had every right to take the highest place, yet chose the lowest. The one who wrapped a towel around His waist and washed His friends’ feet. The one who told us that when we enter a room, we don’t need to scramble for the seat of honour.

We can take the lowest seat.

Not because we think poorly of ourselves and not because we’re pretending we don’t have something valuable to offer. But because we’re no longer terrified that choosing the lowest seat will make us invisible.

A little while ago, Thunder & Son helped coordinate an event with eight Christian apparel brands.

We were one of the businesses involved, and if I’m honest, I wanted it to be a good opportunity for us. I wanted people to notice what we had made, I wanted the sales, the attention and the encouragement that comes with feeling like your work matters.

Instead, we put our own pop-up store in the corner.

We used our platform to promote the other brands and tried to create space for their work to be noticed and celebrated.

I’d love to tell you that it felt holy and beautiful at the time.

Mostly, it just sucked.

It felt like everyone else was getting the sales and attention we wanted. There was a part of me quietly wondering whether we had disadvantaged ourselves by making room for everyone else.

I don’t share that because I think we were exceptionally humble. Clearly, my internal monologue proves otherwise.

But I do think it’s helpful to name what happened next.

Since that event, God has opened doors and given us opportunities we could never have carved out for ourselves. Opportunities that have felt unusually specific, generous and sometimes even exclusive.

I’m hesitant to write that because talking about your own humility feels like a fairly efficient way to stop being humble.

And I don’t believe humility is a transaction. Taking the lowest seat isn’t a life hack for eventually being offered a better one. Jesus didn’t tell us to serve so we could manipulate God into making us successful.

But I think we should still name the moments that remind us we never needed to fight so desperately to be noticed.

So much of our scrambling comes from the fear that nobody will see us.

That we’ll be forgotten... or overlooked.

That we are ultimately unremarkable, so we need to carve out our own space and make a name for ourselves before somebody else takes it.

Humility lives in direct opposition to that fear.

It says I don’t need to force myself into the centre. I don’t need to diminish somebody else to prove that I matter and I can celebrate another person without believing their success has stolen something from me.

I can take the corner.
I can tie ropes in the middle of the night.
I can do the work nobody applauds.

Because the truth is, I am already noticed.
And so are you.

You are seen in the quiet acts of service nobody rewards, you are seen when you make room for somebody else. You are seen in the hidden things of your heart, in the disappointments you don’t announce and the obedience nobody thinks to celebrate.

Your Father sees what is done in secret.

You don’t need to make a name for yourself to convince Him that you matter. You don’t need to secure the highest seat before somebody else gets there.

You are noticed and cared for.
You are not forgotten in the corner.

And sometimes the most Christlike question we can ask is also the simplest:

What does the boat need from me right now?