The danger of pride
Country singer, Kenny Rogers, had a popular song too many years ago called, “The Greatest.” In the song a little boy was throwing a baseball up in the air and trying to hit it with his bat. In the boy’s imagination he was the greatest hitter of all time.
On this particular day he wasn’t hitting anything: He kept swinging and missing until he reached strike three. As the boy was heading home for dinner, he continues to say that he is the greatest that has ever been, and the final lyric says, “Even I didn’t know I could pitch that good.”
Now that is a boy with a positive attitude and/or a boy with a lot of pride in himself. The latter attitude is what we want to explore a little today: the danger of pride.
As we begin to seek wisdom with our whole hearts, guess what? God is gracious in giving us the wisdom that we seek if our motives are pure. Inevitably, once you begin to gain wisdom though, our humanness begins to develop pride in where we are and what we are able to do with this newfound gift from God. We forget that it was from God, and we start to think too highly of ourselves.
God has some words of advice for us through His servant Solomon: “Don’t be impressed with your own wisdom. Instead, fear God and turn your back on evil.”
God hates pride! Think about that for a moment. There are only a handful of things in the Bible that are referred to as something God hates, and pride is one of them.
God hates pride because it is a form of idolatry. Pride puts you ahead of God. Pride says you don’t need anyone’s help. Pride thwarts, if not eliminates, your willingness to learn. Pride keeps you from helping others who you deem to be below your station in life. Dare I say, pride says you are your own god. This is why God associates being impressed with yourself as evil.
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