We like being praised. We like getting awards. We like the acknowledgement of our hard work from others. Why? Because we want others to recognize our effort. We want others to be proud of and impressed by us. Our pride likes the attention.
Now, there’s nothing wrong with praise, awards, acknowledgements, etc. But, Solomon warns us they serve as a testing ground for us.
We are tested when our pride gets attention. So, what is pride? It is defined as the state of being proud but I hate definitions with the same word so the better definition is a reasonable self esteem or confidence. Pride is one of the underlying characters we all have. Yet, it can either lead us to living a godly life or lively a self centered life.
Solomon tells us when others praise us it is a test of our pride because we can easily let that go to our heads. We can begin to think how awesome we are compared to others. And, we then dwell on our own effort and work and how self sufficient we think and believe we are. We are walking in very dangerous ground.
Instead, when others praise us we can be proud of our accomplishments but remember who gave us the talents and abilities to do such a task. God. We should think of all the people who helped us achieve our success. We never did it alone. We should remember that everything we do should be about glorifying God not ourselves.
So, how can we use our pride to be godly then? We will never be completely divested of it so we have to learn how to tame it. Remember our definition – reason self esteem or confidence. When we put our accomplishments and success in the right perspective and thank God for them. We light God’s light shine through our success then we can harness that self esteem. We can tell others how proud we are that God has helped us and given us skills and talents.
Our pride needs the testing fires of a furnance. Solomon tells us that testing fire is others’ praise of us. Do we let it go to our heads and make it all about us? Or, do we allow that to facilitate an opportunity to let God shine through our success.
Pride goes before a fall because it gets so big it blinds us to reality. We aren’t the source of
our success. God is. We can do nothing in this life without God and his blessings. Remember to tame your pride and ego this week and let God shine through your hard work.
Adonai's Appeal 