A WORD TO THE WISE: Proverbs 29: 23

Proverbs 29: 23     A man’s pride will bring him low, but the humble in spirit will retain honor.

Proverbs 29: 23. To succeed you need CONFIDENCE that is equally yoked with HUMILITY. 

You know that this is worth doing, you know that you can get it done, but you know that you can’t do it alone. 

You know that failure is a real possibility, but you won’t let incremental failures stop you from pressing toward ultimate success.   

You’re not as smart as you thought you were, but you can and will learn everything you didn’t know you needed to know when you first started.. 

There are other people just as/ more gifted than you.  O.K., so you’re going to meet them and bring them onto your team. 

You aren’t entitled to anything, not even the thing you want most; so you can’t just claim it, you’re going to have to earn it or create it.    

Confidence tied to humility is leads to success.

Once you taste success, be careful that you don’t keep the confidence and lose the humility.  The remainder after losing humility is PRIDE.   And pride will take you down faster than the jealousy of haters and the fickle shift of circumstances. 

Pride makes you forget that what you attain is based on what you do not who you think you are.

Pride makes you think that you deserve success just for being you. 

Pride makes you think that you built this --- by yourself, that you put this thing together --- alone, that by the might of your own arm you established your empire (Daniel 4: 29-33).

Pride turns you from all the people and practices that got you to where you are.  You become “a different person,” a dumber person.   In the worst cases, pride takes such a strong hold that you continue declaring your own worthiness even while you fall down, down, down to rock bottom.

Keep confidence tied to humility.  Confidence is what you say to yourself when you fail.  Humility is what you don’t say about yourself when you succeed.

Confidence is what you see in you.  Humility is what others see in you.

Don’t let confidence become unequally yoked without humility.

If you are the only person who thinks you’re humble, then you’re not.   If you feel the need to remind people how humble you are, then you aren’t

If you do not regain a genuine perspective of humility, you will soon suffer the ravages of runaway pride.

And that will suck.

---Anderson T. Graves II   is a writer, community organizer and consultant for education, ministry, and rural leadership development.

Rev. Anderson T. Graves II is pastor of Hall Memorial CME Church in Montgomery, Alabama.

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