You have trusted in your wickedness and have said, ‘No one sees me.’ Your wisdom and knowledge mislead you when you say to yourself, ‘I am, and there is none besides me.’ Isaiah 47:10
I woke up this morning with God tugging on my heart to spend some time with him. I had some disturbing dreams in the night so I thought nothing would be better than some alone time with God.
As I write this I’m sitting in Carmi, IL, a small farming town full of cornfields and oil wells everywhere you look. I sit and stare out the window at the 8 acres of God’s amazing creation. You can smell the rain as you watch the birds and see the horses run. It’s beautiful.
It’s so peaceful. The house is quiet and most of the girls are still sleeping. I think to myself, “What a peaceful morning this will be”. I asked God to show me in the Word where he wanted me to go. Did he ever! He led me to the above verse. It tossed that peaceful feeling right out the window and hit me like the spider web had the day before during our “nature walk”.
Pride. That’s the word that came to me as I read this verse over and over again. God has dealt with my pride in this past month more times that I care to admit. It’s so easy to let our pride take control.
I have trusted in my wickedness far too many times. Where has it gotten me? Flat on my face. I believe there are many things that can lead to pride. For me, I let my fear take me there. I became scared of things in my life. After crying out to God and not getting the answer I wanted, I took it upon myself to create MY wisdom and MY knowledge, not His.
What if we were to bottle up our pride and sell it? We could make a fortune, if people buy it that is. For any of you considering doing just that let me save the Surgeon General some time and write the warning label for you.
It should read, CAUTION: USING YOUR OWN WISDOM AND KNOWLEDGE WILL MISLEAD YOU AND CAUSE YOU TO PERCEIVE YOURSELF AS GREATER THAN HE. THIS COULD BE HAZARDOUS TO YOUR HEALTH.
Don’t worry though. Even though God prescribed me ANOTHER dose of reality this morning, after confessing my prideful ways to him, that peace that transcends all understanding came back to me.
He may be a God of justice, but he is also a God full of forgiveness, mercy, and that wonderful word I love to hear, grace.