Ouachita Stories

Years ago, a friend and I participated in a Race for the Cure event. Planning to walk, we placed ourselves near the back of the pack. Later, I decided the pack was moving too slowly and jogged up on a curb to get around the crowd. As I did, my foot slipped, and I landed without any grace on the ground. Kind people helped me up, and I limped the rest of the way with blood streaming down my leg. On this day, my pride got the best of me as I determined that I needed to pass ahead of others. As much as my knee hurt, my spirit hurt worse from the humiliation of the experience.

Sometimes, it’s easy to want to charge ahead with no thought of submitting to God’s authority in our lives. In 2 Chronicles, 7:14, God offers a promise to His people IF they will “humble themselves…pray…seek (His) face and turn from their wicked ways.” He offers forgiveness and healing.

 

If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.

2 Chronicles 7:14

Pride gets in the way of seeking God’s face. It's that thing that tells us our way is better—that we should hop the curb and go outside the boundaries set by God. C. S. Lewis said, “According to Christian teachers, the essential vice, the utmost evil, is Pride. Unchastity, anger, greed, drunkenness, and all that, are mere fleabites in comparison: it was through Pride that the devil became the devil: Pride leads to every other vice: it is the complete anti-God state of mind.”

I pray that we would ask God to help us submit to Him. As the semester nears its end, there is an opportunity for reflection and confession as the Holy Spirit leads. There is also a chance to humbly submit to God and seek His face each new day.

By Rebecca Jones, Assistant Professor of Communications