By Ife J. Ibitayo
Last month, I alluded to a significant financial setback on my journey to launching a business. What if I told you since then God has graciously met my need but my pride nearly aborted the whole process?
Pride is Me-Based
America was built on the myth of self-made men and women. We’ve been conditioned to believe, “With unrelenting intensity and a can-do attitude, the best and brightest can move every mountain all on their own.” I’ve all too often fallen into this trap. But all too often bad timing, bad luck, and my bad habits remind me that I can’t always be the solution to my problems.
Grace is God-Based
In his best-selling book Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell argues that the truly exceptional “appear at first blush to lie outside ordinary experience…[but their success] is grounded in a web of advantages and inheritances, some deserved, some not.” In other words, our success will always be contingent on forces beyond our control. Even the Bible affirms this truth: “The fastest runner doesn’t always win the race, and the strongest warrior doesn’t always win the battle…And those who are educated don’t always lead successful lives. It is all decided by chance, by being in the right place at the right time” (Ecclesiastes 9:11).
The atheist accept this as randomness, and the spiritual call it destiny. But the believer knows this phenomenon as grace, for even “every roll of the dice is determined by the LORD” (Proverbs 16:33). Grace points to a force beyond our own two hands that ultimately determines the outcomes in our lives. It lifts the weight of responsibility off our shoulders and places it squarely on the LORD’s. This means it also shifts the weight of glory from our crown to His.
Conclusion
Pride and grace are like oil and water; they don’t mix. For God Himself says He “opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble” (James 4:6).
The oil of pride is complex. Crude oil is a mixture of hydrocarbons which has no easily written chemical formula. Similarly, pride requires all sorts of explanations to justify its existence.
But the water of grace is simple. Water has only two components: hydrogen and oxygen. Similarly, grace requires only two responses: gratitude and humility. And these two responses can be summed up in two words: Thank you.
“A man’s pride will bring him low, but a humble spirit will obtain honor.”
(Proverbs 29:23)