Look at Me!

“There is nothing among my treasures that I did not show them…The time will surely come when everything in your palace, and all that your fathers have stored up until this day, will be carried off to Babylon…your own flesh and blood who will be born to you, will be taken away…For he thought, There will be peace and security in my lifetime.” Isaiah 39:4b-8.

Well just when we thought we have found a king who doesn’t have a misstep he really steps in it! God places these stories in the Bible to show over and over again that all mankind is subject to fall at any point in their life. This story happened soon after God granted him the miraculous healing of his disease. How soon the wondrous acts of God are laid upon the path of forgetfulness as we journey out of one season into another.

Hezekiah has developed an enormous case of the “I did’s” as he boasted and bragged on every type of riches for which he accredited himself for achieving. He has removed any God focused gratitude and replaced it with his own pride. He shows the representatives from Babylon everything amassed in his treasury. When Isaiah points out that as a result of his pride God is going to take everything away, including the freedom of his children, his response blows me away. He basically answers “Oh, well. I’ll escape it in my lifetime so it is not my problem!”

As Proverbs 6:18 states, “Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall.” Don’t I know this one all too well. When my father-in-law was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s I jumped into action setting up all kinds of things to be accomplished to provide for the future. I was continuously pointing out the things I got accomplished on their behalf in the beginning. God quickly showed me the haughty manner in which I was dealing with others and I spiritually fell. He knew I desperately needed this lesson to move ahead in my spiritual life and prepare me for the things I would need to apply in my heart at a later date.

Pride is one of the most deadly diseases for which we can contract. It is a disease that moves in and out of our lives corroding both our testimonies and relationship with God. Pride is a god we create to worship which cannot be contained as it grows and requires continuous feeding. More people from the Bible and in every walk of life have lost immeasurable relationships, power and fame through their insatiable pride.

The only fall I want to experience in my life is the fall to my knees – it is a much shorter fall than the one from pride.