Tricky. Tricky.

Our culture rewards the proud. The confident. Those with will power. The successful.

Success is a dangerous thing. Isn't it strange how fast success can breed arrogance? It always amazes me how we have to guard against arrogance and pride when we achieve any level of success. Whether you experience success in the classroom, the boardroom, or in ministry your heart can easily and quickly give birth to arrogance.

Think about it. You have a few successes and you begin to think more highly of yourself than you should. You have a few successes and other people begin to think more highly of you than they should. People begin to pay attention to you. Pretty soon success and attention lead you to think more highly of yourself and you begin to expect things. Your acclaim begins to feel like a custom made suit. You begin to embrace the esteem of your peers. You begin anticipating it. You expect it.

Eventually your heart grows cold. When you embrace success and believe your own "press" pride almost always stains your heart. This is an unfortunate cycle. Very powerful. Very seductive. Very blinding. You can easily point it out in the lives of other people, but can't see it in your own life.

Unfortunately arrogance eventually isolates you from others. Your arrogance begins to push others away and build bridges people don't think they can cross anymore. At first people placed you on the pedestal. Early on you reluctantly stood on the pedestal. Over time you began to add notches to the pedestal yourself so you could climb higher, where you belong. Eventually you're so far up on the pedestal that people are no longer your concern anymore...you're looking right over the tops of their heads. They've become your means to an end.

A few weeks ago I read the following devotional written by Charles Spurgeon:

"But there the LORD in majesty will be for us a place of broad rivers and streams, where no galley with oars can go, nor majestic ship can pass." Isa. 33:21.

Spurgeon writes, "The Lord will be to us the greatest good without any of the drawbacks which seem necessarily to attend the best earthly things...Lord, if thou send me wealth like broad rivers, do not let the galley with oars come up in the shape of worldliness or pride. If thou grant me abundant health and happy spirits, do not let "the gallant ship" of carnal ease come sailing up the flowing flood...Should I be so supremely happy as to enjoy the light of thy countenance year after year, yet let me never despise thy feeble saints, nor allow the vain notion of my own perfection to sail up the broad rivers of my full assurance."

Lord, protect us from the seduction of success. Forgive us for our pride. We look forward to the day we are able to enjoy all that you have for us without turning in on ourselves with pride and arrogance.

“God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.” James 4:6

Could God oppose me while the world holds me in high esteem?