William Shakespeare said"Be not afraid of greatness; some are born great, some achieve greatness, and others have greatness thrust upon them."  In a sense you can say that some are afraid to try because they are afraid to fail, but many are also afraid of dealing with the accolades of greatness.  In this day and age we are freely given access to all sorts of vices from various areas for being "a star" in some subculture in the world.  Worst yet, there is much uneasiness to content with in the management of personal pride and selfish lust.  I have been in situations where I felt that certain opportunities were lay out before me and I ran because I didn't trust myself to deal with it properly.  We all have your bents and temptation come in many forms, but I want to turn toward a different slant.  When it comes to greatness, most of us have it wrong.  Jesus hung around with some guys who felt the same way about greatness: 

²⁰Then the mother of the sons of Zebedee came to Jesus with her sons, ^(O)bowing down and making a request of Him.
 ²¹And He said to her, "What do you wish?" She said to Him, "Command that in Your kingdom these two sons of mine may sit one on Your right and one on Your left."

You can't blame her, she wanted to make sure her sons would have a best place in God's kingdom.  The problem is that we look at greatness as a setting apart and above in stature of the person who has achieved greatness.  Many people feel this way, and it is one of the reasons I feel that the Bible is not written by the sole mind of men, but men under the influence of God.  

²⁵But Jesus called them to Himself and said, "You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great men exercise authority over them.
 ²⁶"It is not this way among you, but whoever wishes to become great among you shall be your servant,
 ²⁷and whoever wishes to be first among you shall be your slave;
 ²⁸just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many."


Many times we look down on ourselves because we can't do the things that the "greats" do, we even feel that there are a limited number of slots for greatness and seek to push others aside who we feel are obstacles hindering our rise to prominence.  We see this as backstabbing from co-workers and associates in various organizations.  The sad thing is that it also is happening in churches and ministries here in the US.  However if we only understand what Jesus is saying we will realize that there is plenty of space in the world available for great people, as a matter of fact I would say that there is just enough space to everyone to be great, it is sad that so many will not take the chance.  Don't we understand that in the service of the King and the King's children, there are feats of heroism and bravery worthy of praise.   Service is and occupation we all need to add to our resumes.