I need to get through that door!

“Toward the scorners he is scornful, but to the humble he gives favor.”
-Proverbs 3:34

It’s one of my pet peeves – those people who try to bully their way into everything. If there’s anything they want, anything they want to be a part of, they will shove and push and complain until they get it.

Half the time, they succeed, but everyone gets annoyed when they do. Everyone sees the injustice of it, and it just grates on you.

It’s so much different when someone comes in humility – those people who respectfully ask, who go through the right processes. In the long run, I think this tends to get better results. A kind word does wonders with people, while such pride turns people off. I have a tendency to resist people when they try to put me on the defensive. But if you come kindly and respectfully, that will go a long way with me. And when I go to others in that same way, I tend to fare a little better.

But that’s not our first instinct, is it? Our first instinct is to demand our rights. There is something about the human heart that just NEEDS to get through that closed door. It may be an exclusive club, a special deal, getting out of a speeding ticket, or a beautiful girlfriend that should be way out of your league. If there is a door that seems closed, it is out nature to try to bust it down.

So many of our arguments and feuds are based on pride alone. I am so convinced I am right that I am willing to destroy a relationship rather than accept otherwise. That is that closed door in that moment – being justified as right – and we will knock down anyone who stands in our way.

Meanwhile, you get someone humble enough to not care whether he is right or not, and you’ll have a hard time having an argument. You get someone who is trying to work out of love, and the relationship will probably remain strong.

We can’t stand those people who always act out of pride, and yet we are the exact same way. We’re that way with our friends, our family, our coworkers, the businesses we frequent, and our spouses. We’re like that with God.

We’re probably like that with God most of all. You ask people on the street if they are going to Heaven, they’ll tell you a resounding Yes, even if they can’t really explain why they are so sure of it. Keep talking to them: you’ll find out they want the Final Judgment to be on their terms, not God’s. They’ll say, “I’m a good person,” without a single mention of what God may consider to be good. “God will let me in,” they say in the same way they say, “That club will let me in.”

In truth, it is pride that got Satan kicked out of Heaven. Why do we think we will fare better with it? Why do we think God will let us into Heaven because WE say He will? We scoff at His expectations, at His Word, and His Son. We rely, instead, on ourselves.

In the New Testament, this passage is quoted as saying that “God opposes the proud.” That’s not so hard to understand. We all oppose the proud. We just don’t think of ourselves as “the proud.” But we are. We scoff at God and instead tell Him what He needs to do with us.

Jesus told of two men who went to the Temple to pray. The first thanked God that he wasn’t like all of these sinners around him. The second begged for mercy. Mercy was granted to the second, but not to the proud first man. Which one are you?

Jesus too came in humility, even to a death upon a Cross. In that humble death, He has provided us a way to forgiveness. In our pride God opposes us, but Jesus took our place in punishment, so now we can come in humility and be saved. Without Him there is no way. If we repent and believe, we will find His favor.