Proverbs 16:18-19

“Pride goes before destruction,
and a haughty spirit before a fall.
It is better to be of a lowly spirit among the poor
than to divide the spoil with the proud.” NRSV

Pride is one of my failing sins. I know people who don’t suffer from this, but I’m not one of them. And I can tell you, that my pride gets me into more messes than I care to talk about. The thing is, we don’t talk about pride—at least in a bad way—much anymore. We talk about self esteem and feeling good about yourself and that kind of stuff. And yet, we probably get ourselves into more scrapes because of our pride than we would like to admit.

Most of the time, I like to look at the negative definitions of “pride:” insolence, arrogance. I certainly don’t consider myself to be those things (though it’s likely that others do). I like to consider myself smart, competent, able.

“I like to consider myself . . .”

Looking at some other definitions of pride, I can see myself—finally—as prideful (and it’s not something I’m proud of . . . no pun intended):

The dictionary gives these two additional definitions of “pride:”

• a reasonable or justifiable self-respect
• delight or elation arising from some act, possession, or relationship

I can tell you that I am often proud of myself, my abilities, and my relationships. It was the latter that got me in trouble this time. And, to be honest, I really didn’t see a lot of problems with how I viewed myself. I mean, I am who I am and shouldn’t I acknowledge that?

Well, that’s how I thought until this week when I read a very convicting blog. Written by Pastor Wayne Burleson (whom I’m coming to respect more and more), it was a list of the differences between proud people and broken people. And, in the quiet recesses of my own prayer closet, I had to admit that there were many attributes on the “proud” side that described me.

(You can read the blog here: http://kerussocharis.blogspot.com/2008/04/differences-between-proud-and-broken.html)

I look at this passage in Proverbs and realize that I want to have a “lowly spirit,” I want to be a person who is broken before the Lord. I would challenge all of us to continue to keep Pastor Burleson’s blog close to our hearts that we might become a broken people before the Lord.

© 2008 Robin L. O’Hare. All Rights Reserved. International copyright reserved. This study may be copied for nonprofit and/or church purposes only without permission when copied in its entirety (including this notice).