Good morning my dear ones, Can you guess what runs around a baseball field but stays still at the same time? Well just in case your stumped, It's a fence. Oh that was a bad, sorry bout that.
Saturday 4/8
Prov. 29:23 "A man's pride will bring him low, But the humble is spirit will retain honor."
Pride is seen as a destructive attitude throughout Proverbs, here are a couple of examples:
Prov. 11:2 Pride leads to disgrace
Prov. 16:18 Pride goes before destruction
Pride also prevents people from excepting reproof or advice;
Prov. 12:15 ... think their own way is right
Prov. 13:18 ... ignore criticism (correction)
The second segment of the verse teaches us just how God responds to the humble person, He lifts him up, or stated in a other way, He gives him a place of honor.
These two varying reactions shouldn't surprise us should they? Especially when people who we know respond in the same way.
When a person is prideful, arrogant - They try to distance themselves from these sorts of people,
or as we say it, are know-it-alls.
When people are kind, humble - They find themselves drawn to them, or are giving to them.
When I was a 9 or 10 years old, my mother had a friend who had a son, who was an only child, he was selfish & prideful, when it was summer mom would sometimes take me to play with shall we call him Dennis. Usually when she would want me to go play at someone's house, I was all in, but not to his house.
He was selfish, cruel, and mean. You say how cruel was he, Well as an example, his favorite thing to do was catch animals & torture them.
Grass hoppers tear there back legs off, pin then up on a cardboard box & bake them in the sun
Lady bugs - push them down ant holes & watch gleefully as they were carried down the ant hole
Frogs - hold them under water until they wouldn't be able to hop away, and then squash them and wait
to see if they were able to draw their intestines back in (believe it or not many could)
His other joy would be to make me play mables, and since he was older he would win & then make me play for keeps, which meant he would keep all my best marble's with him
He also would force me to hold things and then try to hit them with his sling shot, by the way he was a
terrible shot and would always miss whatever he was shooting at and hit my hand, or any other body part
in the way. When he missed his target & hit me he would take such glee.
My mom enjoyed visiting with her friend so I put up with Dennis & his cruelty, however, one day after I
suffered one of those terrible days I confided in my sister my misery at those visits. The next time my
sister (who is 6 years older) asked my mom to come along and after witnessing Dennis's cruelty
she told my mother about this. My mother apologized to me and said she wouln't put me through that
again.
So when we speak of cruelty & pride I am reminded of this experience in my childhood. The one benefit of this experience was that, from then on when I was playing with younger children I never took advantage of my greater experience, strength, etc. In fact, I would always try to give them the advantage, this in turn made me the most popular playmate. Who said kids are dumb?
So Go With God for He goes out of His way to lift up the weak, humble, injured, etc. while suppressing those who are prideful, and selfish. We are so blessed to call Him our Savior, the lover of our soul.
Last night Becky & I watched the movie, "The Passion" of Jesus and we were reminded of the extent of His suffering that He endured for our sins. O truly "What a wonderful Savior is He". Words can't really express His sacrifice for us. "It is no secret what God can Do".
Dennis probably turned into a serial killer 🫣