Pride Goeth Before The Fall

Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall. —Proverbs 16:18

Whenever I read Proverbs 16:18 I think of a dear saintly widow named Esther Krauss who sang in the choir at Open Door Baptist Church.  She is in heaven now.  One Sunday morning as the choir waited to enter the platform someone complimented her that she looked especially pretty that morning.  Then, as the choir climbed the steps onto the platform, Mrs. Krauss tripped and fell flat on her face before the entire congregation.  Totally humiliated, she was helped to her feet and proceeded to her seat.  Later she confessed she fell because the compliment about how pretty she looked momentarily made her proud.

We must beware of the subtle dangers of pride.  A prideful thought can lead to our undoing before we realize what happened. It is like the story of a frog who asked two geese to take him south with them.  At first they resisted; they didn’t see how it could be done. Finally, the frog suggested that the two geese hold a stick in their beaks and this he would hold on to with his mouth.

So off they went, and it was really quite a sight.  People looked up and expressed great admiration.  Someone said, “Who was so clever to discover such a fine way to travel?” Then the frog opened his mouth and said, “It was I.”

Beware of pride. “When pride cometh, then cometh shame…” —Proverbs 11:2