I recently watched a video of an awesome song done by one of my most favoritest singers. She was talking about pride and humility…two of the trickiest character qualities to deal with. You can’t have the latter without the lack of the former.
“Pride comes before a fall,” Proverbs 16:18 says. I love how The Message paraphrase puts it: “First pride, then the crash—the bigger the ego, the harder the fall.”
Ouchie!
This singer said, “Why do we gotta fall? We should just stay low.”
It makes the most perfect sense. I mean, physically, it is simply impossible to fall if you’re crawling. And if we are staying low, if we were to fall, it wouldn’t hurt nearly as badly as if we were way up high. It’s really the best news. Just stay low.
That’s humility, my friends. And remember, humility isn’t thinking less of yourself; it’s thinking about yourself less. Stop concentrating on how you look to others, your reputation, your life status, your perfection, you new car, your diet, etc.
Besides that helping to keep your humility in check, your “image” of perfection or “got-it-all-together-ness” is intimidating to others. Nobody likes to look at that kinda stuff. It makes them feel bad. They start to play the comparison game, and that’s one of the most dangerous games to play. (Besides Trivial Pursuit against my husband! Witness?)
Stay low. If we walk in humility…recognizing that ain’t none of us all that and a bag of chips…then the Lord will lift us up. It’s that simple. Is it easy? Oh, goodness no! Because our human nature wants what we want, and we want what we want right now. We are all about us, all of the time.
The Bible tells us that Jesus wants us to come to him as little children. Have you ever been around little children? Earlier this summer I was beyond blessed to get to spend some good quantity and quality time with my newest great-nephew. He’s 2 years and 9 months old. He has no pride. Oh, he can be a tad stubborn at times, but there is no pride found in that preciousness. Most of the time I was there, his goals were simple: have a snack, play outside, get a nap, drag Aunt LeeLee to his room to watch the movie “Sing,” use his talent (drumming and singing), and to laugh and make us laugh.
Another simple goal: running!
This 2-1/2 year old loves to run. Very little if any walking is done, unless he’s holding someone’s hand. And there were times that, as he was running, he would fall. Little humans do that. He never was hurt…physically or emotionally. He’d just get right back up and start running again, maybe laughing as he did.
The benefit of being all of 3 feet tall is this: when you fall, you’re closer to the ground. It doesn’t hurt as much (except when the little toddler at a wedding we attended fell down, got up and immediately turned to run with his friends and ran right into a big wooden post. That hurt a bit.)
Children are closer to the ground. When we as believers practice staying low, we stay closer to the ground. And when we stay closer to the ground, our pride won’t make us fall. And if something happens to “accidentally” make us fall, we don’t have far to fall.
The song that I listened to talked about why we fall. And the reason is this: we are holding things in our hands that keep us from being humble.
Let’s look at this in a totally, non-spiritual (is anything really non-spiritual, tho??) way, shall we.
My much loved and much missed father-in-love passed away 6 years ago this month. He was at the ripe old age of 75 years old. Believe me…he had many years left on this earth, based on his health and attitude and usefulness.
But one day, he decided to move an antique wardrobe of sorts from their attic to the downstairs portion of their home. As he was descending the steep and narrow stairway that divided upstairs from downstairs, he lost his footing. He fell and hit his head on the tile floor below. He suffered traumatic brain injury and died within a few days.
Why am I telling you this very sad story?
Because it is a lesson to every single one of us. I am not by any means lessening the act of service my father-in-love was doing on that day in August of 2013. But because he was trying to maneuver a heavy object that was compromising his balance and vision, he suffered a great loss…as did we all.
My loves, listen! In the spiritual/emotional/mental world that we independently and personally live in, most of us are holding onto things that are way bigger than we are, that are way heavier than we ought to be holding, and are way wider than we can see around. And because of that, we are most destined to fall.
Mark. My. Words.
Have you heard the story about a monkey in a cage?
As the story goes, the ancient way to catch a monkey was to place a banana in a narrowly-barred cage, and leave it out in the forest. When the monkey gets there, he sticks his hand into the cage and grabs the banana. But the banana is too big to fit back out through the bars of the cage. As the hunter approaches, the monkey won’t let go of the banana, and thus is captured, soon finding itself inside the cage, right along with the fruit he loved too much to let go of.
Get it??
We have an enemy that wants to catch us and cage us. And whatever you hold most dear, that keeps you from a life of surrender and humility, that will be in your cage.
Maybe you’re holding onto it right now? Maybe your arm is going to sleep, holding onto something inside the cage that’s meant for you.
What are we holding onto, y’all? What is so “important” to us that we hang onto it for dear life?
When we finally come to realize how great God really is, and that all His promises are true, then we’ll understand that, no matter what it is, it doesn’t even compare to the riches and the promises that God wants to place in our hands.
“I’m gonna let it go! I’m gonna get real low!”
“I’m gonna let it go! I’m gonna get real low!”
“I’m gonna let it go! I’m gonna get real low!”
“I’m gonna let it go! I’m gonna get real low!”
“I’m gonna let it go! I’m gonna get real low!”
Why did I repeat that 5 times? Because it’s SO important.
We simply CAN NOT move forward into humility when we are holding on to things that keep us prideful and/or self-centered!
Let it go! Get real low!
the girl ramsey 