Pride goes before destruction. A haughty spirit before a fall.
Proverbs 16:18
Most can probably already quote this verse. If you can't then you are at least familiar with it or at least with the more familiar shortened wording, "pride comes before the fall."
There's only one problem with it...it sure is easy to see when someone else has their nose in the air walking toward a tripping hazard. But it is almost impossible to realize when I am the one blinded by pride.
The whole reason a fall generally follows a prideful, haughty spirit is that pride is blind! If I am blind then how am I supposed to see and recognize my blindness!? That thought leads me to one conclusion that I am more and more convinced of every day...and yet I am still hesitant to act on it. The conclusion?
That maybe this Proverb is written as much for the friends and family of the prideful person as it is for the prideful person himself.
What do I mean by that? Well...when you first read this verse, what face popped into your mind? Each one of us has a gut reaction that absolutely rebels against outright pride and haughtiness in someone else. Why? Possibly because their pride interferes with our own and therefore we have a fine-tuned detection device for it. Whatever the reason, my guess if that it's usually not hard to think of someone that fits the bill for this Proverb. What's more, many times we are just waiting for the moment that they finally hit the open sewer lid and take a fall. My questions is this- if they came to your mind quickly, their is a good chance you have a relationship of some sort with them. Why, for the love of God (literally) and the love of a brother or sister, friend, or just simply a creation of God, have you not at least attempted in a loving way to point out the fall they are headed toward?
While asking the question, I already know a lot of the response. 1. Selfishly, we want to see them endure some of the pain that they have caused others. Just read through the Psalms and you'll see many of God's people longing for divine vengeance to be paid to the prideful. But while we do praise God for His justice, do we not also share in His grace and mercy that is waiting for the sinner to repent and be spared of destruction? 2. We simply lack courage. After all, people blinded by pride tend to walk on other people who are less "important." We have already endured their insults and snubs. Why should we set ourselves up for more abuse by trying to warn them of something that are choosing to close their eyes to? But isn't pride and selfishness really the root of all sin? Isn't someone who is blinded by pride simply a person who is separated from God by their own sin that deludes them? Are they not going to pay for that eternally? Then can we not see them in light of eternity instead of the latest prideful insult and view them with pity instead of animosity?
And there you have my plea for those who are Christ-followers to follow Christ event to the point of lovingly confronting sin in all of its forms. But how can we attempt to avoid becoming the person who is headed toward destruction ourselves?
I just happened to pick up Celebration of Discipline by Richard Foster last night and read a couple of pages. I've been reading it for a while, but haven't looked at it in several weeks. Wouldn't you know, the pages I read last night were about humility. The problem, according to Foster, with trying to discipline one's self toward humility (the opposite of pride) is that the more one tries to do so, the harder it becomes. After all, at the point I think I am finally humble, I am falling dreadfully backward into pride again. So how do we work alongside the Spirit to allow Him to produce this fruit in our lives? Foster wisely points not to the discipline of humility to battle pride and increase true humility, but to the discipline of service. Choose daily to serve in any situation. Serve the great. Serve the weak. Fight the impulse to let others know about your service. Because when I look for appreciation and recognition for my service, I am actually subtly encourging the growth of my pride. But when I choose to put others first by serving them in large or small ways and I purposefully control my tongue so as not to seek recognition for it, I beat down my pride. And in the absence of pride, humility reigns.
I can't think of a better VOW for disciples of Christ to take this week than to seek to serve without recognition in as many ways as possible. If that service includes the service of confronting a prideful attitude and warning the wearer of that attitude of a fall that is around the turn, then perhaps that is precisely where you need to choose to begin your battle against your own pride. And by all means, if someone does come to me or you, may each of us have the courage to see that God is not done working on us. Maybe the next project He has in mind is trimming our pride through the help of someone who loves us enough to tell us our eyes are closed.
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