This morning I was reading the Proverb of the day and came cross this verse: Pr. 18:12, "Before his down fall a man's heart is proud, but before honor comes humility."
It brought up all kinds of memories related to pride - like the first time I remember telling my sister that I was proud of her when she sang a solo in church. Man, did she ever give me a scolding about pride, that it is a bad thing, and we all should be willing to serve God in any way that we could and never be proud of ourselves because he gifted us a certain way, and I know that is a run-on sentence, but that is the way it all rushed out of her.
And I sat in stunned silence, not knowing what to do with it. I was just trying to do, to say something nice to her, not that it wasn't true, that she sang well. Now, I must say here that we were both fairly young Christians, only a few years, and I was about 11 so she would have been 22...both of us three-year-old Christians. So it was in her earnestness to do right that she scolded me.
Anyway, ever since then I have struggled with this issue - is it wrong to want or give affirmation, to want someone to tell you that you did something well or right? This has weighed on me for years, and this morning, in my other devotional reading, the writer quoted a couple of verses from one of my favorite Psalms...139:23-24 "Search me O God and know my heart; try me, and know my anxieties; and see if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting."
I learned that Psalm at about the same time as a I learned a song in church and have loved and been challenged by it ever since. This is partially because, also at that same time, I was challenged that to sing a song was to pray its words. Singing the song was praying the words, and I could never lightly sing that melody or ask God to search me and know my heart.
So, back to the thought I started with, is it sin or pride to want to be affirmed, to have someone tell you that you have done something well? I have come to the conclusion that I do not think it is wrong to give some- one affirmative words, to tell them they have done something right or well because how on earth do we learn? How do we know what works, what honors God, what we should and shouldn't do if no one ever tells us so? Certainly, someone could allow these words of affirmation to become occasions for pride, but I don't think that is reason to withhold them.
I think it is a kindness, a gift we give someone to tell him or her that we have been blessed by that ministry or that they have done something well. Isn't this part of loving someone or part of encouraging them?
That before honor comes humility thing: isn't that the part we give to God - we allow him to work in the hearts of those around us....and as they are humble before him, it is his business to honor them in whatever way he chooses....and sometimes that is through us here and sometimes, I think, it will be in the future, perhaps in eternity.
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