Be Humble, Else You’ll Stumble

Word-Of-The-Day: ‘He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly <prudently> with your God.’ (Micah 6:8); ‘<Jesus said,> “For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”’ (Luke 14:11)

This entry’s title is a quote from D.L. Moody; one does not need to be overly prideful to be humbled, but it often is a catalyst in the process.  Humility often comes from when we become overconfident in ourselves or our processes, when we believe we have all the bases covered in our planning. As ‘Murphy’s Law’ often points out, most plans don’t survive intact after they are initially implemented.  We misplace hope in our abilities and planning to encounter situations, instead of placing our hope in the Lord and working with Him to plan our next steps.  Sometimes it’s not the planning but the lack of it that causes our moments of humility, where we believe we’ll never encounter a given issue (like a Bible trivia quiz).  When that issue comes up, and we scramble to solve it while leaving God on the sidelines to watch us fumble through the motions, before we finally turn to Him and ask for His help.

The often-quoted verse of Jeremiah 29:11-12 tells us that God already has the plan in place that we need to succeed, “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”  What we often ignore is the ‘if/then’ statement after this verse, with Jeremiah 29:12 being the ‘then’ and 29:13 being the ‘if’ ((12) <God said,> “Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. (13) <If> You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.”). God allows us to frolic in our ignorance, devising our own schemes to resolve problems (some that are non-existent except in our own minds) until we grow tired and then turn to Him in defeat, crying ‘Uncle’ to get us out of the mess we are in.  (We humans are often quite entertaining at times when we frolic in our ignorance, by the way.)

We all out-smart ourselves with our ideas and have ‘good intentions’ to make our lives and the lives of those around us better, but as the saying goes, ‘the road to perdition is paved with good intentions’.  Only God’s intentions are good and righteous, and all of our plans and ideas should be run by Him first before we move forward.  Taking actions on the motto ‘BE PREPARED, BE AWARE, PLAN ACCORDINGLY’ for future events (hurricanes, pandemics, various crises and civil affairs) should always be brought to the Father before moving forward.  God wants us to plan and be prepared but in the proper and righteous way with the right intentions and motives backed by His Word.