Everyone loves being recognized for something good they did or something they do well. Who doesn’t like recognition? It feeds into our ego and makes us more sure-footed in ourselves and of our abilities. All of our accomplishments and self-identified strengths can possibly blind the best of us, mistakenly making us forget where all our good things and our abilities come from and where our real strength resides – God!
Have you ever gotten a big head? So big that it made you forget who you are in reality and whose you are? I have.
I’ve leaned into my own understanding and let my mind taint my heart to the reality of my limited strength and ability (Proverbs 3:5). You may ask how do we arrive in this state, a state of not glorifying God, but glorifying ourselves, amongst other things, more than God? I believe it can be due to the prosperity that God may allow in whatever outlet of our lives.
I can easily look back to my life and pinpoint when I sought God the least and the most. I sought God and gave Him the most glory when I was at my brokest financially, lowest mentally, and it seemed like nothing I did would go right. I glorified myself and my own false authority when things seemed to be going the best for me. I tended to limit God’s love for me to His blessings that He bestowed upon me or interpreted said blessings as a result of something I did, or something that I deserved because I was so great. The more God blessed me, the more confident I became in my own strength. This could be something you have experienced too. One of the dangers of the Christian life is to take credit for what God does.
“It is sometimes easier for us to handle poverty or weakness than wealth or strength. Poverty causes us to recognize our need for God. While prosperity and pride has the potential to persuade us to believe that we no longer require him.” – Henry T. Blackaby
An event in the Bible that portrays this quote so well is the life of Samson (Judges 16). Samson was someone who was quite literally blessed by God with super strength: he was well known for this ability, and just like us at times in the midst of our prosperity, Samson let his God given ability become his god and forgot who he was (Isaiah 10:15-16 NLT). When Samson revealed his weakness and let his hair get cut, God’s spirit left him as well. Sometimes, when it feels like our blessings overflow has dried up, we wonder, “where’s God?” Yet, do we question ourselves in the same light and ask, where has our reverence for God gone?
We tend to always ask God for help, to save us from this bad situation or another, from our death valley -whatever that may be and we wait expecting Him to act, to save us. What if God has to save us from ourselves? We tend to always believe our worst enemy is the devil, and yes, he’s certainly in the top 3 of that category, but have we recognized ourselves as our own enemies? What is there left for God to do? We all know that pride comes before the fall (Proverbs 16:18-19). God will save us from ourselves if that means letting us fall to such a low point that it smacks some sense back into us.
We all have had those moments where life has humbled us really quick in one way or another, when our britches had become too big for our own good. The fall-off never feels good, yet the humbling that that experience gives us and the reverence that God gains back into our lives from that experience makes every bump or bruise we may endure worth it in the end. Always stay mindful of the idols that we create in our lives, even if and especially when said idols are ourselves (Isaiah 44:18-20 NLT).
