Foolish Pride

I recently had a 94-year-old woman propose that I dump my

wife and marry her. She said she liked my face. Despite the fact that this was driven at least in part by her senility, I couldn’t help but feel a little spark of pride.

I quickly texted my wife and told her she “had competition.” She was not impressed nor did she feel threatened. In fact, much to my chagrin, she didn't even glorify my bragging with a reply.

Thinking about this, it occurred to me that all of our pride is foolishness. Foolishness to God and to many others as well. No matter what I might boast about, God is FAR greater and more accomplished. Even on the human plane, whatever I've done, someone, somewhere has likely accomplished this--and more. When I was in high school, I was a good basketball player. When I hit college, the competition got stiffer and my ranking dropped significantly.

Pride is silly.

Proverbs 26:12 says, "There is more hope for fools than for people who think they are wise (NLT)." Proverbs 11:2 adds, "Pride leads to disgrace, but with humility comes wisdom." These and many other passages would suggest that we drop pride and thus receive blessing.

Amen!

To that end,

Pastor Joel