Pride and Prejudice

My lovely flower baskets on the front porch have been nipped by Jack Frost at last.  

Their beautiful flowers have been blighted by the cold, robbing them of their glory,

leaving them frozen in a blackened wilt.  

Seeing them this morning, following my time alone with God pondering pride, 

I thought the poor flower baskets a fitting analogy, 

for what is more destructive to people who strive to fear the Lord and walk in His ways

than a prideful heart?

Pride, thought to be a virtue in our American culture,

is one of the things that God hates.
“The fear of the Lord is to hate evil:

  pride, and arrogance, and the evil way,

and the forward mouth do I hate.” 

Proverbs 8:13

Yet, I have seen many a God fearing family go down by way of Pride. 

Just as the flowers suddenly lost their glory and beauty, 

so pride tears and rips apart at the framework of loveliness 

God has cultivated in believer’s lives.
 It is an evil to be ever on watch for,

it sneaks in little by little and ends up devouring the whole family. 

Homeschoolers, by and large, are a proud lot. 

There can be a predominate air that anyone not homeschooling is less godly. 

Any sort legalistic tendency could sway toward pride; 

wearing dresses only, being quiver full, preparedness minded,

of a certain denomination, or any number of things. 

Pride fosters more pride.

Like the blackened blossoms, it is just plain ugly.

God values humility, we all know that,

 but does our heart steep with the longing to be truly humble? 

In our Proverbs study, humility comes up over and over.

There we learn that the humble heart is the teachable heart,

the teachable are those who become wise, Proverbs calls them, “The Just.”
“The Wicked” refers to those who hear but refuse to learn and apply. 

In other words, prideful.
Kinda’ makes you want to sit down and evaluate where your at, doesn’t it? 

It does me. 

So I ask myself, are there areas that I harbor pride? 

After our study, I do not want anything to do with Pride,

if there be any in me, I want to identify it and purge it away at once,

remaining attached to the vine in forever bloom.

“And be clothed with humility,

for God resists the proud,

and gives grace to the humble. 

Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God..” 

1 Peter 5:5b,6a.