by Pastor Joel Lawler

Proverbs 16:18
"Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall."

I heard a very interesting definition of the word pride.  It was pride could be translated "windbag".  The more I thought about this the more I like this definition.  I get this picture of this puffed-up, bloated bag full of nothing but hot air.  The bag, while large in size, is only big because it is catching someone else's wind.

In 1 Corinthians 13 it says that "Love is not proud".

Someone who is full of pride really inhibits themselves for the ability to love. 

Pride is so blinding.  I am sure you have encountered people who cannot get over themselves.  Every other word is "I", "me" and "my".  It is extremely difficult to spend much time with them.  It is impossible to hold a meaningful conversation with them because they believe the rest of the world revolves around them.  They are making a fool of themselves but are too clueless to even notice.

When you see the pictures from Iraq, it amazes me the size of Saddam Hussein's ego.  His picture is EVERYWHERE.

I recently watched an interview with a celebrity.  He was talking about all of the relationships he had and his two failed marriages.  The guy was in his early forties and had the mentality of a child.  Everything revolved around his needs and desires.  He lamented at the end of the interview that he was lonely.  It wasn't real difficult to see what was repelling people in his life. 

In order to love others, we have to put their interests above ours and that takes swallowing our pride.

The opposite of pride is humility.

Humility has received a bad wrap from our culture.  It is false portrayed as being wimpy and letting everyone walk all over you.  This is a skewed picture of what humbleness is. Humility is restrained force. 

Captain Josh Byers was killed in combat in Iraq recently.  His father is a member of my church.  When Josh's dad spoke of his son, he told a story to help us understand who Josh was. 

He said that Josh was traveling in a caravan when he suddenly felt a sharp pain in his arm.  A rock had struck him.  He stopped the caravan and hopped out of his vehicle.  A boy was beside the road with a sling-shot.  As soon as the boy had seen Josh get out of his truck, he started running.  Josh chased the little Iraqi down.  Once he had caught him, he confiscated his sling-shot.  He then pulled from his bag a paddle-ball toy.  He spent a few minutes training the boy how to play the game.

This story to me is the perfect picture of humility.  Josh could have shot the boy.  He could have chased him down and put fear in the child's heart.  He chose to humbly do something extraordinary. 

Josh will be missed by his family and those who had the privilege to know him.  There are far too few "Josh's" in the world.

Humility is an old college professor patiently leading his students towards an answer rather than beating them over the heads with his superior knowledge.    Humility is not weakness but it is well focused and applied strength.

Pride will destroy us but we can choose the path of humility and make life worth living for ourselves and those who we come in contact with.