A Back-to-basics lesson on Pride ... from the Rabbi !!

I near diurnally sit through Leadership Team meetings to discuss business performance issues when I habitually lean on my inherent know-how and nurtured competencies (or at least I thought that I possessed them) to churn-out views and recommendations to our Teams. But, I was recently in a forum where I was in appalling out-of-harmony with the proceedings simply because some of the commodity market and financial strategy theories that were up for debate were far beyond my reach of comprehension, leaving me forlorn. This had happened to me a few occasions earlier on in different settings, but I did not quite feel the pinch incisively biting into my thickened hide until this time around.

It is not that their theorizing was about strategies too alien to me, but for some reason I began to strangely sense that my grey-cells had slipped into stand-by mode and were not tuning in with the wavelength of the group. Muted, sidelined and my ego scalded I had just resigned from the conference room, when heaven’s radio crackled with the Lord’s voice on air with his message for my ears concerning “pride taking a fall in the middle of the hall” inevitably someday. I sure realized that it was a “close call on a bad fall” that grim afternoon.

As I drove home that evening, I meditated on the Bible that has God’s words on record saying “pride goes before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall” and about how it’s the only human trait that could turn the Sovereign God himself to become one’s adversarial and resisting force. I shuddered at my pathetic state of spiritual degradation and my estrangement from God towards more reliance on the self, and went down on my knees that night before Him pleading for His compassionate mercies. It was only after a thorough work of conviction, repentance and confession that I received the assurance that my folly of high-mindedness was forgiven me. I realized that it was yet another back-to-basics lesson, this time on humility, a “Christian Living 101 refresher” if you will, taught in God’s unique masterly style, that the takeaways would surely stay forever etched in my mind. Bless Him !!