Pride comes before the fall

A Weekend Read:  

Sunday March 24 2012

In Proverbs 16:18 it says,” Pride goes before destruction..........”  Proverbs 15: 33,” .........humility precedes honour.” 

In my life, it seems, every time I think I’m becoming good at something or have accomplished more than I hoped for and develop a “swelled” head because of it, I suffer a humiliating experience in that very area.

I have been golfing for about 25 years and if anything can humble a person, it is golf! Some years I spend weeks practicing and other years I just play and hit a few balls before each round. Several years ago I took some refresher lessons to improve on distance and accuracy.  That is the year I broke 100 for the first time. I thought I would keep improving in that direction!  The next game, opened my eyes to the possibility, I was not ready for the pro-circuit tour yet!

 During the years of my golfing “career”, our group always consists of 12 - 14 people and usually the women golf together and the men so it isn’t every game I golf with my husband. One year I had been golfing particularly well and I couldn’t wait to show him how much I had improved.  Just he and I went away on a golfing holiday and I had been bragging about my low scores. I even agreed to play for a dinner in a fine restaurant as a sure bet that I could beat him (using handicaps, of course) The first tee, I dribbled the ball off the tee, second shot, scuffed it, third shot, hit it fat, fourth shot, hit a pretty good one, at least it landed on the green, it took me four putts to finally put the ball in the hole. That ended my haughty conversation about how much I improved!  My score was about 8 or 9 and I was, to say the least, humiliated. 

This has happened many times in the game of golf and I have finally learned not to say anything about my game and just play! Sometimes my games are good and sometimes they are downright ugly!  But at least I have learned not to predict what I will shoot! 

I find this is also true in every day experiences of life.  When we spend time condemning others for something specific, we often find the same fault in ourselves fairly quickly thereafter. In fact, when we accuse others of having faults, we suffer the consequences of showing our imperfections! No one confides in someone who finds faults in others! Each time we pass judgment on someone else, it displays haughtiness in ourselves and we appear to think of ourselves as better than them.  Isn’t it better to spend time looking for the good things in others and displaying humbleness in ourselves? Then others will see your Godly attitude and build you up without your feeble and imperfect efforts.

Matthew 7: 4, “How can you think of saying, ‘Let me help you get rid of that speck in your eye,’ when you can’t see past the log in your own eye.”