When it comes to building ships inside of bottles, I have to imagine that the smaller the bottle and the bigger the ship, the more difficult the task. I don’t think writing is so different from that. The fewer words, the bigger the concept, the more difficult the task.
This analogy is not the prolegomena to whats coming. In fact, it hasn’t anything to do with what I am going to write about tonight. It is just me justifying to myself why I think it is ok, from time to time, to write 200 words instead of 2000 words. It could actually be the harder task. Though do not be fooled, the 200+ words that follow will not be the literary equivalent to a big wooden ship in a small glass bottle.
I have felt a lingering shock for somedays now, coming from a single, simple, and unoriginal thought. The thought is this: that God is opposed to the proud.
I have felt a lingering shock for somedays now, coming from a single, simple, and unoriginal thought. The thought is this: that God is opposed to the proud. I told you it wasn’t original. Most reader Bible readers will be familiar with the verse(s) it comes from.
James 4:6 says, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.”[1]
Still, maybe you are like me in that no matter the familiarity of the verse, you have never been truly possessed with its truth.
Think for a moment about how God’s enemies are defined in this verse. The proud. He does not say God opposes the murderers, the adulterers, the liars, or the pedophiles. He says God opposes the proud. Of course, he is opposed to murderers, adulterers, liars, and pedophiles. But there is something deeper to all of those sins and it is something that is present even in people who aren’t in the class of murderers, adulterers, liars and pedophiles. It’s pride.
To read that God opposes the proud reminds me of my sin and the seriousness with which God takes it.
I can think good thoughts of myself sometimes because I have not done anything terrible in the world’s eyes. And yet to read that God opposes the proud reminds me of my sin and the seriousness with which God takes it. It is the proud that He is opposed to. It is my pride that He is opposed to. It is me in my pride that He is opposed to.
I need to know that. I need that reminder everyday, that God opposes the proud and that I have pride in my heart. I need it so that I can be driven to remember the Gospel of the cross everyday, and so that by His grace I can be humbled.
Originally published here and used with permission.
[1] Also: Proverbs 3.34 and 1 Peter 5.5
