Words Of Encouragement For Your Day (Tuesday 04/17/2012)

Your Pain Can Teach You What Your Pride Won’t Let You Learn

Proverbs 11:1-3 Amplified Bible (AMP)

¹A FALSE balance and unrighteous dealings are extremely offensive and shamefully sinful to the Lord, but a just weight is His delight. ²When swelling and pride come, then emptiness and shame come also, but with the humble (those who are lowly, who have been pruned or chiseled by trial, and renounce self) are skillful and godly Wisdom and soundness. ³The integrity of the upright shall guide them, but the willful contrariness and crookedness of the treacherous shall destroy them.

            My husband has quite a testimony about the things that he has been through in his life, and the lesson that he had to learn.  I have known my husband for over thirty years and we used to have a relationship based on antagonism. We both thought it we needed the last word.  Although I had such a crush on him, he drove me nuts.  As he left high school and entered the working world and began to master many things and become more talented and diverse, he said he allowed pride to enter his life.  He began to think that it was about his talents and ability, instead of remembering the very foundation that was instilled in him as a child, that all that was good within him, every talent came from God.  But he said it was his pain that taught him, what his pride would not let him learn in those days as a twenty and thirty something.  He shared this past Saturday that you can reach the highest of heights and that you can have careers that people dream of, and when we are living in a place of pride that God will allow, it all to go away.  If that isn’t an attention getter I don’t know what!

            As we read through the Bible we find that God address the issue of pride, He even admonishes us in Proverbs 16:18-19, “Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall. ¹⁹ Better to be lowly in spirit along with the oppressed than to share plunder with the proud.” I have heard people say, that they didn’t need anyone, and that they had it. Pride is a recipe for destruction, not just personal destruction, but in relationships and it can become poison in our lives and occupations. I have seen people be so focused on them and how they feel; they disregard others or are quick to dispose of people because of their pride.  I have seen people carry unforgiveness or offense around and not apologize or seek reconciliation because of pride, never understanding that relationship was needed and held value and significance in their lives, until something happens and there is guilt or emptiness that surfaces.  Pride can cause our prayers to be impacted and our life to begin a downward spiral.  Pride can put us in a place of pain and lost; it is here that we learn lessons that could have and should have been learned without the discomfort of these times.  Pride can blind us to the truth and cause us to believe lies that cause us needless suffering, that we must ultimately learn what truth is.
            If God thought enough of this subject to tackle it from the Old Testament into the new, this is an area we should not ignore.  Pride can become the silent killer that ends many aspects of our lives, and bring us into a place where we must learn by the vehicle of pain.  Don’t get caught in a cycle of making everything about us, forgetting that others live in this great big world that we presently reside in, but more importantly don’t let pride keep you from remembering what God asks of us in our living.  I am sure we have all heard that “pride will kill you.” It can, as it keeps us from the pursuit of truth, seeking assistance and making it right.  Pride can destroy our health, relationships and our connection with God.  We should examine ourselves and humble ourselves before we are humbled!