Proverbs 16:18
Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall.
This proverb is placed at the very center of the book of proverbs and is followed by one on the virtues of humility.
When a man carries his head high, his tendency is to look upward and not to be careful about where he is going. Not noticing what he may stumble against (and the people he walks upon), he falls. As they say, ‘The bigger they are, the harder they fall’. The bigger a person or thing is, the greater they fall.
We see today all those great financial institutions and magnates who in their pride and arrogance thought that they were above the retributive system of God. For it is not man’s policing who caught them, it is God’s retributive system; the system which declares that what a man saws he will also reap; the established principle that our judgment is meted to us in the same way we judge others; that our plate ends up being composed of what we dished to others.
Here is the heart of he who is ripe for the destructive fall of those who walk in pride: like the unrepentant king Saul, he walks head and shoulder above his brethren. He challenges the commandment of God trough the prophet; he is justified in his disobedience; he deserves forgiveness: (1 Samuel 15). God has established life’s retributive systems, and we are judged the way we judge others. We are also forgiven as we forgive others. Others, and even God at times, are with us the way we are with them. Pride challenges and wants to be above these principles.
May we live our lives as open books. May we open ourselves to Him. May we realize the pride of our way when yet small; the fall will be more bearable. It is humility which helps us hear the soft warnings He sends our way.
Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall.
This proverb is placed at the very center of the book of proverbs and is followed by one on the virtues of humility.
When a man carries his head high, his tendency is to look upward and not to be careful about where he is going. Not noticing what he may stumble against (and the people he walks upon), he falls. As they say, ‘The bigger they are, the harder they fall’. The bigger a person or thing is, the greater they fall.
We see today all those great financial institutions and magnates who in their pride and arrogance thought that they were above the retributive system of God. For it is not man’s policing who caught them, it is God’s retributive system; the system which declares that what a man saws he will also reap; the established principle that our judgment is meted to us in the same way we judge others; that our plate ends up being composed of what we dished to others.
Here is the heart of he who is ripe for the destructive fall of those who walk in pride: like the unrepentant king Saul, he walks head and shoulder above his brethren. He challenges the commandment of God trough the prophet; he is justified in his disobedience; he deserves forgiveness: (1 Samuel 15). God has established life’s retributive systems, and we are judged the way we judge others. We are also forgiven as we forgive others. Others, and even God at times, are with us the way we are with them. Pride challenges and wants to be above these principles.
May we live our lives as open books. May we open ourselves to Him. May we realize the pride of our way when yet small; the fall will be more bearable. It is humility which helps us hear the soft warnings He sends our way.
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