I am shot through with Pride. Many times, I feel like I could be a modern-day Nebuchadnezzar. Not blatantly--no one speaks so straightforwardly today. Where Nebuchadnezzar told an empire to bow to his image on pain of death, I would speak degrading things about myself so that others would lift me up and tell me what's awesome about me.
It's such a quiet thing today, arrogance is, that we can ignore because we think we're DOING things that are humble, when in the end it's our heart's direction that matters.
Nebuchadnezzar lost his mind, praise God, due to that arrogance. He was not really a man anymore, living as an animal. He lost everything he had on the earth, and I can only hope God would be as merciful to me if I ever am overcome by Pride like that.
How could that be Mercy? Listen:
"At the end of the days I, Nebuchadnezzar, lifted my eyes to heaven, and my reason returned to me, and I blessed the Most High, and praised and honored Him who lives forever,
for His dominion is an everlasting dominion, and His kingdom endures from generation to generation;
all the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing, and He does according to His will among the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth;
and none can stay His hand, or say to Him, 'What have you done?'
At the same time my reason returned to me, and for the glory of my kingdom, my majesty and splendour returned to me. My counselors and my lords sought me, and I was established in my kingdom, and still more greatness was added to me. Now I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise and extol and honor the King of heaven, for all His works are right and His ways just; and those who walk in pride He is able to humble."
And those who walk in pride He is able to humble...
Whenever I do something good or learn something worth telling (in my opinion), my narcissism leads me to fantasize about how great it would be if I were lifted up before others and they listened to what I had to say. I have had that recurring thought since elementary school.
So then last Sunday, I'm at church. They show a slideshow from a trip I had gone on, and our preacher gets up and asks the guys in one particular picture to come up front. I was one of those guys.
Foree, the preacher, says, "Now would one of you guys just explain what ya'll are doing there?" We were doing a silly skit, one we like to use for laughter and enjoyment. So I explain it to the church and get a chuckle and step back from the mic.
Then Foree says, "So there's no point to it?"
In that moment God, through surprise and a little humiliation taught me what I needed to know. In that moment God showed me that the praise my flesh had desired for so long really wouldn't fill me. That it was actually only a fleeting and relative thing and couldn't fill me.
He taught me, too, that He will lift me up when He wants and bring me down when He wants, and it will all be for His glory.
He taught me that He is the only constant, the only all-good, the only thing that could possibly lift me up and keep me there, wholly filled by Him.
"And those who walk in pride He is able to humble."
And I praise God for humbling me, as I know He will do--will have to do--for many years.
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