Proverbs 16:18–Pride Goes Before Destruction

Proverbs 16:18–"Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before the fall."

This is one of those well-known pithy sayings of the Bible.  Many people, even unbelievers, seem to recognize the validity of this saying.  The heart of this passage is about the persistent and deadly poison of pride.  Pride is a toxin that can sour and destroy any person.  Pride is a vulgar, disgusting venom that props up people on homemade castles of cards.  With one blow the castles and the person is felled, forced to humility by humiliation.  It is so vital, then, that we would strive to maintain a penitent and humble spirit, a mind that would put others first, and a heart that loves with compassion and gentleness. After all, this verse is a principle and a warning.  Let us pray to heed the warning so that the principle therein does not again prove itself true in our own lives.

2 Corinthians 10:17-18–No Use Boasting In Myself

2 Corinthians 10:17-18: "'Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.'  For it is not the one who commends himself who will be approved, but the one whom the Lord commends."

I warn you: today, I am going to be rather autobiographical and expose a disdainful part of myself in reference to this verse.  It may get a little long.  And please forgive me my pride, anyone whom I may have injured in the past for my egotism.

I have always had a busy mouth.  What I mean by that is that I have often found myself talking more than is ever necessary.  And while I can faithfully attest that by the grace of God I have seen significant sanctification in my speech, I must say that in my earlier years the motivation for my mouthiness was two-fold: pride and insecurity.

When I was younger, I was very insecure about my intellect but I was also very prideful of my ability to communicate.  As a result, the main content of my speech mostly dealt with how great I thought I was, especially in regards to my intelligence.  It was as if by telling people how smart I was then maybe I would actually be how smart I told everyone.  The truth, however, was far more dubious.

Instead of proving my brain power by telling people about how smart I was, the only thing I proved was how much of a donkey I could be.  After all, a prideful person is already difficult while a prideful person that tells you how proud they are is an altogether bane.  So rather than letting everyone known about the greatness of me I let everyone know about my own supreme deficiency: personal pride.

This came to a head once when during one exceptionally prideful episode in which I was too busy telling people how much I knew about everything to listen to any wisdom, when my grandfather told me something that I will never forget.

He said, "You know, you don't have to tell everyone how smart you are.  If you really are as smart as you think you are, they'll figure it out.  The best athlete never has to tell people how good he is; the way he plays will let everyone know."

This verse hits me square in the heart.  It has been a major part of my Christianity to put to death my pride so that I would not ever boast in myself but that I would only boast in the greatness of God and how good He has been to me.  I spent years trying to 'manage' my pride through self-examination.  But it was only when I looked squarely into the holiness of God and His Son, Christ Jesus, that my pride has been put to death in the flesh and I have been, by the grace of God, made new.

My earnest and ever-present prayer, then, is that I would keep my eyes fixed firmly on Christ and His awesomeness.  This is the only way to truly stop any root of pride from blooming in our hearts: to stare into the holiness of the Almighty Lord.  For in comparison to Him, we are but creatures who are wholly dependent on Him for sustaining existence moment-by-moment.

The Heavy Pack of Pride

There is a specific mountain northeast of Nepal that the over centuries has been dubbed, Shikhanah Benerkha, which is loosely translated as "the mountain of life".  For centuries, travelers have come to the  mountain to climb it.  The legend goes that if a man can climb the mountain with his burdens and sins on his back, they will be released from their troubles after they ascend to the highest peak and drop off their packs.

At the base of the mountain, before the ascent, the would-be climbers meet with their guides, fill their packs with their burdens, and consider their journey.  After the arduous hike up and down the mountain, the climbers, now freed from their burdens, would go home with a renewed sense of life.  A journalist had heard the reports of the mountain and went to report on what was going on.

For weeks, the reporter stayed at the base of the mountain and watched as people would come with their packs full of burdens, then climb the mountain to let them go.  The journalist saw people with packs full of coveting, others with packs full of greed or of lust, but one time a man came to the base of the mountain with a giant pack, far bigger and more stuffed than any other pack that he had seen yet.

The journalist walked over to the man as he was meeting the guides and the other climbers.  The journalist inquired, "Hey there, I've seen a lot of packs.  Your's is the biggest.  Your burdens and sins must be huge.  What are they? Lust? Greed?"  The man looked at the reporter and chortled, "Ha!  Greed, lust, covetousness, vanity, wrath--that's nothing compared to my problems!  Ha!  Get out of here and let me handle my business."

The man then turned back to his preparations.  The journalist shrugged at the man's rudeness and turned back to the shack at the base of the mountain.  It wasn't until the man had started his trek up the mountain that the reporter realized that his giant, heavy pack was full of only one thing: pride.  For pride is the heaviest and most destructive of all of man's sins.

The poison of pride seeps into every pore of a person.  It is the basis for every sin.  The essence of pride is the overvaluing of self to the undervaluing of everyone else.  Because of this truth, it has no place in Christianity.  Unfortunately, because pride is a sin disease that is common to all mankind, only through the powerful indwelling of the Holy Spirit regenerating our minds and our hearts will we be able to overcome the destructive force of pride.  Let us then devote ourselves to laying down our burdens of pride and selfishness at the foot of the cross so as to follow Christ and love people truly selflessly!

The Quest for Humility

Facebook has made all the world self-promoters, Twitter has made every one fancy themselves a quick-quipping pun king, and Youtube has made everyone think they should be a star.  We live in a world that spreads self-esteem and expects self-exaltation, making the truly humble heart is a rarity.  But God demands something more, indicating that there is ruin for those who would exalt themselves in haughtiness and pride.

This is a hard but necessary teaching.  Many of us would rather be noticed and heralded, but God asks for something else altogether.  Throughout the book of Proverbs, humility is contrasted to pride just as wisdom is contrasted to foolishness and as godliness is contrasted with sin (Pro. 3:34; 11:2; 15:31, 33; 16:18-19; 18:12; 21:4; 26:12; 29:23; 30:32).  This should be enough in itself for us to know that God demands us to be humble so as to receive His favor and His blessings.

But before we should think that only the Old Testament was concerned with humility, we should be reminded of Jesus very own words: "For whoever exalts himself will be humbled, but whoever humbles himself will be exalted (Matt. 23:12; cf. Luke 14:7-11 & 18:9-14 )."  We should take Jesus' words with seriousness and sobriety and it should, ultimately, convict us on to humility.

Clearly, humility is a big deal.  However, as mentioned above, it goes against our well-ingrained, western tendencies.  Accomplishing the task of humility is a holistic, full-person endeavor.  To be sure, the quest for humility is a matter of identity.  If we are to be found solely and securely in Christ, then there is simply no room for pride or haughty self-exaltation because we will be looking at our own worth in the light of the Holy Lord.  Let us then look to God to be our identity and our only boast!

The Pride of Worry

Pride is a grotesquely evil monster that lurks in the depths of our hearts, waiting for moments to leap to the surface of our lives and reveal its wickedness through us.  It is vile, both for its lure and its propensity to mask itself behind veil's of confidence or insecurity.  As a result, pride has a variety of guises it employs within us to conceal its sinfulness.  These guises make pride look like other sins, like greed or vanity, but at the heart it is still but simple pride.

One such facade worn by pride is worry.  Worry, or anxiety, can be basically reduced to fear.  Fear of the unknown, fear of the weight of the circumstance, or a general uneasiness with the state of affairs are all examples of worry but they all stem from the same, somewhat complex principal: a feeling that we are not totally in control of the situation, however, if we were in control, if we had the necessary power to handle the present context, we would be able to make everything okay.

Needless to say, this proposition is a fallacy and is untrue for several reasons.  The first is the fallacy of control.  No human has control over anything but whether they will have faith in God or not.  To choose to believe God or not is the grand extent of our control.  Any feeling that humans have control beyond this is simply false.

The second issue deals with power.  Because every morsel of our power and strength is derived and given from God, to wish for the power to handle the situation means that we believe that the One who currently has the power, i.e. God, is either not qualified for the job or simply incompetent to handle the situation.  Quickly the prideful root of worry comes to the surface once the veneer is wiped away.

Additionally, worry's prideful head rears itself in two opposing but equally sinful ways.  These two ways can be summarized by the two reasons people worry, void of whether they know it or not: people either worry that their issues are far too small for God to care about, or the inverse, they think their issues are far too big for God to be able to handle.  The latter reeks of unbelief and pride, while the former smacks of a small faith and false humility.

There are many Scriptures to note in this discussion, perhaps the chief among them being Matthew 6:25-34 and 1 Peter 5:6-7.  In both cases, the exhortation is clear: cast your fears and worries upon the Lord, who both desires to care for us and is capable to do it.  Relying on God, wholly depending on Him in faith can overcome any worry and anxiety we could have, and should be how we deal with worry.

Again, remember that the root of worry is pride, so the inverse of worry must be humility, the essence of worship.  The conclusion must be, then, that worship triumphs over worry.  Worry should prompt worship so that pride's slithery head is sliced off like the lurking serpent it is.  Let us refuse to be prideful in anxiety or worry and strive to worship God!