Has your pride stopped you from being obedient to God?
Pride is a feeling or deep pleasure or satisfaction derived from one's own achievement, the achievements of those with whom one is closely associated, or from qualities or possessions that are widely admired.
"God opposes the proud but shows favor to the humble" James 4:6
As the Lord was downloading what the word was for this week, he led me to the story of Nebuchadnezzar in one of my favorite books of the bible Daniel.
There are several stories about King Nebuchadnezzar in the book of Daniel, and the story of Daniel 4 is a really powerful testimony about humility. In this story, Nebuchadnezzar has a dream that he doesn’t understand, and so he asks Daniel to interpret it for him. Daniel tells him that in the dream, King Nebuchadnezzar is the tree who is chopped down and made to live with wild animals. Daniel says he will have to live this way for 7 years, until he learns that God is in control of everything. Nebuchadnezzar was not a humble king! He was very proud of his kingdom and his palace.
One day, Nebuchadnezzar was walking and surveying his kingdom and bragging about it, when all of the sudden he could no longer speak and had to go live with wild animals. He spent 7 years away from his kingdom, just like in his dream. At the end of 7 years, he praised God and knew that God was in charge. He wrote a letter to his people and said, “Now I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise and extol the King of heaven, for all his works are right and his ways are just; and those who walk in pride he is able to humble.” (Daniel 4:37) This is such an amazing story about the transformation from pride to humility!
The story was good it made me do a heart check for pride in my heart. While doing my self assessment, I realized there was a lot more pride in my heart than I expected when it came to my relationship with God.
As defined above it is a feeling or deep pleasure or satisfaction derived from one's own achievement. I realized that even though I always blamed it on my control issues deep down inside I kind of felt that I could get it right and God couldn't. That he could get it right about some things but my track record showed me that in other areas I knew what I was doing and didn't need help. Or so I thought. Pride had me feeling like do I want to really risk it all for uncertainty? That even though I wasn't living my best life I was living a pretty decent one. You know if it ain't broke don't fix it mentality.
For instance, today and prayer the Lord said Destiny there will be a change of plans. The WEBINAR IS NOW FREE! I was like huh? God that isn't what you said to do before. He said there has been a change in the plan just trust me and my pride wanted me to not change the plan.
But reading James 4:6 reminded me that I wasn't right in the sight of God. That even though his way was uncomfortable I had to put my pride to the side and just surrender. It was when I did that life began to be the best it ever had been and I started really living my best life.
How has pride affected your relationship with God or anyone else for that matter? Remember this is a judgement free zone because Lord knows it's gotten in the way in my marriage too many times to count. Comment below
