You may think of pride as being a good thing, which in some cases and situations is helpful. When it comes to affairs, pride is is destructive. At a time when you need humility, trusting in pride is a sure way to make the mess you are in worse. In such cases, pride keeps you from asking for outside help. Pride wants you to trust in your own intellect and senses. Trusting in your own senses is often tricky business, since the senses can be fooled. You may recall from school days, the pictures that often played tricks on your eyes. The illustrations of M.C. Escher are filled with such visual tricks. If your vision can be tricked, how can you be sure that your emotions, physical sensations and other sensory fields can not be fooled as well? The heart is often easier to trick than you may think. Although it sounds romantic to say “I am following my heart”, the reality is that your heart can be tricked. The heart often confuses lust with love and admiration with adoration. Since it confuses many sensations, you may be in the midst of being led astray. When you or your spouse are emotionally involved, you loose your objectivity. Like a sailor loosing their bearings, when you start trusting in your heart during a time of emotional involvement, you can loose your bearings as well. Pride will keep you from asking for help. Pride will keep you from daring to ask important questions. Pride will keep you from admitting your mistakes. During such times, you need help from outside sources, you need input from others, you need a helping hand. You need someone to help you out of the mess you are in and to put you on solid footing. Instead you are left clutching onto your pride, going down in a sinking ship while singing “I did it MY WAY!”.
Best Regards,
Jeff Murrah
2 Responses
Jer 17:9 The heart [is] deceitful above all [things], and desperately wicked: who can know it?
Jer 17:10 I the LORD search the heart, [I] try the reins, even to give every man according to his ways, [and] according to the fruit of his doings.
Jerimiah5 Thus saith the Lord; Cursed be the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from the Lord.
6 For he shall be like the heath in the desert, and shall not see when good cometh; but shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, in a salt land and not inhabited.
7 Blessed is the man that trusteth in the Lord, and whose hope the Lord is.
8 For he shall be as a tree planted by the waters, and that spreadeth out her roots by the river, and shall not see when heat cometh, but her leaf shall be green; and shall not be careful in the year of drought, neither shall cease from yielding fruit.
9 The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?
10 I the Lord search the heart, I try the reins, even to give every man according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings.
11 As the partridge sitteth on eggs, and hatcheth them not; so he that getteth riches, and not by right, shall leave them in the midst of his days, and at his end shall be a fool.
12 A glorious high throne from the beginning is the place of our sanctuary.
13 O Lord, the hope of Israel, all that forsake thee shall be ashamed, and they that depart from me shall be written in the earth, because they have forsaken the Lord, the fountain of living waters.
14 Heal me, O Lord, and I shall be healed; save me, and I shall be saved: for thou art my praise.
15 Behold, they say unto me, Where is the word of the Lord? let it come now.
16 As for me, I have not hastened from being a pastor to follow thee: neither have I desired the woeful day; thou knowest: that which came out of my lips was right before thee.
17 Be not a terror unto me: thou art my hope in the day of evil.
18 Let them be confounded that persecute me, but let not me be confounded: let them be dismayed, but let not me be dismayed: bring upon them the day of evil, and destroy them with double destruction.
19 Thus said the Lord unto me; Go and stand in the gate of the children of the people, whereby the kings of Judah come in, and by the which they go out, and in all the gates of Jerusalem;
20 And say unto them, Hear ye the word of the Lord, ye kings of Judah, and all Judah, and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, that enter in by these gates:
21 Thus saith the Lord; Take heed to yourselves, and bear no burden on the sabbath day, nor bring it in by the gates of Jerusalem;
22 Neither carry forth a burden out of your houses on the sabbath day, neither do ye any work, but hallow ye the sabbath day, as I commanded your fathers.
23 But they obeyed not, neither inclined their ear, but made their neck stiff, that they might not hear, nor receive instruction.
24 And it shall come to pass, if ye diligently hearken unto me, saith the Lord, to bring in no burden through the gates of this city on the sabbath day, but hallow the sabbath day, to do no work therein;
25 Then shall there enter into the gates of this city kings and princes sitting upon the throne of David, riding in chariots and on horses, they, and their princes, the men of Judah, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem: and this city shall remain for ever.
26 And they shall come from the cities of Judah, and from the places about Jerusalem, and from the land of Benjamin, and from the plain, and from the mountains, and from the south, bringing burnt offerings, and sacrifices, and meat offerings, and incense, and bringing sacrifices of praise, unto the house of the Lord.
27 But if ye will not hearken unto me to hallow the sabbath day, and not to bear a burden, even entering in at the gates of Jerusalem on the sabbath day; then will I kindle a fire in the gates thereof, and it shall devour the palaces of Jerusalem, and it shall not be quenched.
Zaza,
Your references make me smile. I always enjoy reading scripture, especially when it is from KJV. 🙂