The Foolishness of Pride

I’m in a plane looking down on the world from 35,000 feet and I have a little better understanding of why the Bible says that God abhors those who are proud. As I’ve looked down on the smallness of the world below and been able to see schools, golf courses, and skyscrapers, I wondered about the people who inhabit each of these places. I wondered about the different people who live in the nearly identical looking subdivisions with the nearly identical looking houses. I’m sure in each of these subdivisions there are those who think they are really something special because their house, lawn, car, or occupation is just a little bit better than that of their neighbors. I’m sure of this, because so often, I am this person. From ground level it is easy to get caught up in comparing ourselves to those around us in our neighborhoods, but from the air it is easy to see that there is a nearly identical neighborhood just two miles away with a whole bunch of people who think that they are something special because they have better stuff than their neighbors. And two miles beyond that, another neighborhood with the same rat race at ground level.
I’m looking down on southern Canada now—I think—and I’ve noticed in this areas dozens of of long ovals below which I assume to be horse racing tracks. Again, I can only imagine that at each of these tracks there is a local jockey whose entire identity comes from the fact that he or she holds the most records at that particular track. From the ground, it’s easy to get caught up in trying to be someone significant in the eyes of our peers and forget that there are dozens of other horse tracks, each with their own legendary jockeys who is equally as good as the one down the street.
I just looked below on a lake that was so beautiful from the air and I wonder about the pride and jealousy that may exist around this lake on ground level. One man sits in his boat and thinks highly of himself because his boat is a year newer and two feet longer than his neighbors. Another couple is jealous because they couldn’t afford the property on the lake and had to settle for living across the street.
What foolishness pride is! In 1 John 2:15-17 John wrote, “Do not love the world or anything in the world, if anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For everything in the world—the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his flesh, the boasting of what he has and does—comes not from the Father, but from the world. The world and its desires pass away, but the man who does the will of God lives forever.”
We just ate our airplane dinner, which was surprisingly delicious and now we’re much farther into Canada and as I look below there is nothing but trees and lakes as far as my eyes can see. Not a trace of humanity in sight. Though at ground level, we make much of ourselves in our neighborhoods, offices and sports arenas, the aerial view is a vivid reminder that cars, houses, jobs, and success in the eyes of man is not worthy of boasting. Only the Lord, the Creator of all that is below, is worthy of our adoration and exultation.
“For the earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it,
The world and all who live in it.”
-Psalm 24:1