Where Pride Can Leave You
Good Morning,
A man’s pride will bring him low, but a humble spirit will obtain honor. Prov. 29:23
Recently I had the opportunity to join 19 other men on a golf marathon. 108 holes in 3 ½ days. This amounted to more golf than I had played in the previous 6 years combined. The fellowship was great, the golf courses were beautiful and challenging.With the challenging golf courses and lack of practice came other challenges. The biggest of which may have been keeping perspective that this was supposed to be fun (which my wife, to her credit repeatedly reminded me). When things were going well that was not a problem. When I was looking for golf balls in the middle of nowhere it was more difficult.On one particular green this came up to bite me. I lagged my putt to within 18” and expected to hear the words, “that’s good”. I didn’t hear them and proceeded to tap the putt past the hole. (The format we were playing was such that my playing partners did the right thing by making me putt it). To be honest, I was miffed. Dead wrong, but miffed just the same. So out of frustration, I mentioned to them that I would have expected that putt to be good. Then it hit me. I had been a real jerk. Whether they thought so or not wasn’t the point. I should have kept my mouth shut.I had a choice to make. It was not their responsibility to placate me. I had messed up. I could either just let it go, knowing that they fully understood the frustration of the game or I could error on the side of humility. I knew that I had not acted in a way that respected and honored them. So about 2 holes later I told them that I had been a jerk and was sorry. They said no problem and we went on.Whether they had given it a second thought did not relieve me of my responsibility. In my mind to have swept it under the rug would have left a cloud over our foursome and it simply was not worth the risk. We went on to have fun laughing, celebrating and commiserating the “joy” of the game for the rest of the day.We can all be prone to saying things better left unsaid. Doing things better left undone. And being quiet when we should speak up. Until heaven, it is likely that we will at times, behave in ways that don’t honor God and others, leaving us upset at ourselves. The bigger question is whether we will let those things keep us in the place they left us. Often, a simple conciliatory word or action, borne out of humility, will restore things to a healthy place and let us move forward in peace.Need to leave a place pride has taken you this morning?
Temper is what gets most of us into trouble. Pride is what keeps us there. – Annoy.
Live this week on purpose,
