What Do I Know

As dangerous at it is, I've been thinking again...

This time I was considering the type of people who feel like they have it figured out. Whatever "it" is. You know the type: If they do it, it's right. If they say it, it's correct. If they think it, you need to hear it. We typically aren't most attracted to these people. Unless we don't like to ever have an original thought, they are not usually our "BFFs."

However, as I reflect on this type of people, I realized something. Something horrible. Something that was a serious blow to my pride. Ready for it? Okay...here it is: I can be that person. In my passion about an issue, decision or conviction, I can be that person who - whether I verbalize it or not - thinks I have it all figured out. And I know how I arrive there, too. It's (generally) out of good motivation; therefore the pride creeps in unannounced. Maybe it's a choice I have made due to information I have come across at a certain time. Maybe it's a decision my husband and I have made for the good of our family, at a particular time. Maybe it's something that God has personally convicted me about or directed me to do. All "good," "pure" motives, right? Yes. To begin with. The sin comes when I start to think, talk and/or behave like I know what is best for everyone else. And, to take it a step further, when I deep down, in the hidden places of my heart, believe I am BETTER than those who don't do it my way. Yes, there are some issues where there may truly be a right and wrong way. People's hearts may genuinely be in the wrong place; their motives not good. But who am I to judge?! Who am I to even know that?!

While we are called to show grace to one another in the Body, loving and "showing preference" to one another, what concerns me most about this habit of pridefulness is that as a follower of Jesus, I am called to point others to Him. If I am the kind of person who acts as though I have it all (or at least some of it) figured out, am I going to turn away those who don't know my Savior before I even get a chance to introduce them to Him? If I focus on things that, at the end of the day, don't matter compared to eternity - i.e., health, schooling, politics (yes, I included that last one) - will I be "tuned out" by those I come into contact with before I have an opportunity to address the only issue that really matters? THE Way, THE Truth, THE Life...?

Isaiah 5:21 says, "Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes and prudent and shrewd in their own sight!" I wonder if this is one of the reasons that is in the Bible. One more reason we need to get our self-righteous eyes off ourselves and focus them on Jesus. And those who desperately need to know Him. The one thing that there is ultimately only one right "answer" to, should be what we think, speak and act most passionately about: Jesus. The One Who gave us "authority over the serpents and scorpions and every power of the enemy..." (Luke 10:19)

He and His blood are all we can rightly claim. His work is our only boast.