PRIDE IS A HEART ATTACK

Katie Frazier

The second book of Chronicles contains an amazing story about a father and his son. This father was a king; therefore, the son was a prince. They went by the names Hezekiah and Manasseh respectively. The story begins in chapter thirty-two, verse twenty. Hezekiah and his prophet, Isaiah, turned to the Lord in times of trouble and realized that they needed His strength. At the time, the king of Assyria, Sannecherib, was against the Lord and tried to, essentially, ruin Hezekiah. However, verse 22 says, “The Lord saved Hezekiah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem from the hand of Sennacherib the king of Assyria, and from the hand of all others, and guided them on every side.” Later on Hezekiah fell ill, prayed to the Lord, and the Lord gave him a sign. This sign brought Hezekiah’s attention to the sad truth that he had not properly repaid the Lord for the favor shown to him. This was the reason that wrath was looming over him, Judah, and Jerusalem. Hezekiah took the Lord’s sign to heart and humbled himself. Because of this, “the wrath of the Lord did not come upon them in the days of Hezekiah,” (verse 26). Hezekiah went on to be blessed by the Lord and was buried in the upper tombs. He was honored by all of Judah and Jerusalem. After his death, Manasseh became king at the young age of twelve. He reigned for fifty five years. “But he did evil in the sight of the Lord, according to the abominations of the nations whom the Lord had cast out before the children of Israel,” says 2 Chronicles 33:2. God blessed Manasseh with power and wealth just as what was given to his father. However, Manasseh did not recognize these blessings as God’s favor. He used his power to raise up altars for the Baals and practiced witchcraft. It was not until the king of Assyria came and physically bound Manasseh, taking him to Babylon, that he finally turned to God. 2 Chronicles 33:12 says, “In his distress he sought the favor of the Lord his God and humbled himself greatly before the God of his ancestors.” Manasseh was humiliated as a king and therefore humbled himself. This next part is probably the most important.  The following verse continues with, “And when he prayed to Him, the Lord was moved by his entreaty and listened to his plea; so he brought him back to Jerusalem and to his kingdom.” It was not until Manasseh was basically forced to humble himself that the Lord listened and acted upon his plea. The best part is that after Manasseh was handed over to the hands of his enemy and could have lost everything, God lifted him back up, because of humility, to a place of kingship.

The key in both of these stories is humility. It did not matter what each person had done in his life; the heart condition mattered more. Humility changed their outcome in life after pride was in the process of destroying it. Where there is not humility, there is bound to be pride. Proverbs 16:18 says, “Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.” Hezekiah and Manasseh both had pride. Manasseh’s pride involved pride of wealth, ability, success, glory, family, etc. This pride went before his near destruction when he was captured. Pride is the first sin, and it opens the gate to all other sins. “Pride brings a person low, but the lowly in spirit gain honor,” says Proverbs 29:23. This verse reigns true in Hezekiah and Manasseh’s lives. As each of them was brought to a low point by pride, God brought them back up and restored their honor and riches once they were humbled. Pride will end up bringing you to a lower point.

Whenever I would have a bad or arrogant attitude, my mom would always say, “Change your attitude or I will change it for you.” Our God is the same way! If we do not get rid of our own pride, God will allow even our most formidable enemies to get rid of it for us. Acts 12:21-24 displays this perfectly. King Herod was sitting on his earthly throne, clothed in royal apparel. Herod had the attitude of a king who was better than everyone else just because he was given a high position. What Herod did not realize was that no matter how great you become, you never outgrow the authority of the One who made you great. Herod had become too prideful of his earthly position, forgetting that God was above him, and God was the one who had given him everything. The people listening to Herod’s speech shouted that he had, “the voice of a god and not a man” (Acts 12:22). Herod’s pride grew when he heard this comment and did not give glory to God. He was then struck down by an angel of the Lord and eaten by worms. These worms represent pride; it ended up killing Herod. Because Herod did not destroy and conquer his pride, his pride actually ended up destroying him.

In order to conquer pride, it is imperative that you know what makes it grow. Success breeds and feeds pride. When you become more successful, it is easy to look at yourself instead of giving the glory to God. For example, King David was an amazing ruler who loved God dearly. God blessed him with great success. David was a successful king. This success is what fed his pride. It was when David was at the height of his glory and ruled over a vast kingdom that he fell. In the midst of success, he fell to sin. In the midst of his pride, he committed adultery. “The thing that David had done displeased the Lord” (2 Samuel 11:27). David committed adultery with a woman named Bathsheba. 2 Samuel 12:1 says that God sent a man named Nathan to David. The Lord used Nathan as His messenger. Because David’s pride got the best of him, he sinned with Bathsheba who was another man’s wife. David was a great King, but in order for the Lord to make him greater, He had to get rid of David’s pride. Nathan was the person to do this. When Nathan lovingly rebuked David for what he had done, David confessed saying, “I have sinned against the Lord” (2 Samuel 12:13). David realized what he had done and humbled himself, confessing his sins.

The way to get rid of pride is through humility. Humility is the opposite of pride. This means that since pride is the gateway to all destruction, then humility is the gateway to all righteousness. Proverbs 22:4 states that, “By humility and the fear of the Lord are riches and honor and life.” When our hearts are humble, God will raise us up and bless us more than we could imagine. Humility is the key to reaching our high point. The psalmist, David, wrote in Psalm 18:32-33 that, “It is God who arms me with strength,” and, “He makes my feet like the feet of deer, and sets me on my high places.” Our feet have to be prepared and made a certain way to walk the path to our high places. We can try walking up the mountain with our own strength, but it is certain that we will fall back down before reaching our high point. However, when we prepare our feet to walk as Jesus walked when He said, “I am meek and lowly in heart,” (Matthew 11:29) God will actually set us on our high places. Humility is required to reach our highest calling.

Think of yourself as a feather, a tiny feather, perhaps from a fancy feather-stuffed pillow that just floats around in the air. Have you ever tried to grab one of these tiny feathers? They always seem to escape from your hand. Pride is like this. God is trying to grab us, the feather. However, due to our pride, He is not able to hold us in His hands and take us where He wants us to go. After a while, the feather ends up on the floor. This represents humiliation. Once we have been humbled, God can pick us up off of the ground and take us, the feather, higher than we have ever flown before. 1 Peter 5:6 says, “Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time.” When we think of ourselves higher than we should, God is not able to hold us, protect us, and carry us to our destiny. Even if the feather was not floating away from God, His word states in 1 Peter 5:5 that, “God resists the proud.” Our pride repels God even when He wants to come near to us.

Jesus, the One that we should model our lives after, never had pride. Jesus, as the most humble being to ever walk the earth, washed the feet of his own dicisples. This is an extreme form of humility. Many people today would not just kneel down and start washing the feet of their friends. John 13:14 says, “If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet.” Jesus came to the Earth as the example. If he washed feet, we should kneel down and wash feet. If he was humble and meek, then we should be humble and meek.

Humiliation is a means to restoration. Realize that when you are humiliated, pride is being worked out. Sometimes God will use a type of wilderness to work pride out of us because pride will take us out of our promise land. God wants to bless us. However, He cannot bless us like He wants to when we have pride because He knows that we will just look at those blessings as if we earned them. As aforementioned, pride actually repels us from God and vice versa. This is because pride makes us seem greater than we actually are. Pride deceives our heart (Obadiah 1:3) and makes us think that we can do everything of our own accord.

When I was in tenth grade, I thought that I was becoming rather successful. Looking back on the events, I realize that I truly was achieving a lot. I was excelling in school, dance, and everything else that I tried. I was always up late studying for something after getting home late from ballet. I danced four to five days and about twenty hours per week. With everything that I had going on, I really had no time for God. Any extra time I had was spent sleeping. I noticed how good at everything I was becoming, and without God in the picture, I became rather prideful. I was not the type person who would shove my achievements in other people’s faces, but secretly I was prideful. One thing about pride, is that it does not always manifest itself on the outside at first. Pride is of the heart. Luke 12:2 says that, “There is nothing concealed that will not be disclosed, or hidden that will not be made known.” Pride begins in the heart, but eventually it will show on your outside. God knew about the pride I had on the inside. In order for God to lead me to my destiny, I needed to be humbled. It was then, that I became sick. It started out in Fall when I came down with a simple cold. I did not think anything of it. I missed two days of school, but then I went back for exams and continued dancing outside of school. God was still out of the picture. Exams ended; Thanksgiving break came. It was then that my health quickly declined for the worst. After my pediatrician was not sure what was wrong, I was sent to a disease specialist. I had many blood tests, numerous MRIs, ultrasounds, x-rays, and even surgery. By mid-December, I could hardly walk right. Everything simple became so much harder. School was out of the question because I couldn’t even hold up my own head. Dance was ruled out once I couldn’t lift my arms above my stomach. Everything that I was once successful in, that I once had pride in, was taken away from me. My disease was not diagnosed for a full three months, and I never attended school during this time. This gave me a lot of time to think. I realized that our God is a jealous God. I have always known this, but it became real to me. My success made my pride grow, and my pride repelled God. God does not want anything to keep us from him. Since my pride was keeping me from him, He had to get rid of the things causing my pride. Once these things were gone, I was humbled. I realized that I am a human being created by God and totally dependent on Him. Once I realized this, He slowly started giving me back things that used to feed my pride. I knew that the Lord was testing me, but I made sure that this time I did not fail. Whenever the Lord blessed me with success in any area, I made sure to thank Him and give Him the glory. I am now almost completely off all of my medicine and have had one of the fastest recovery rates my doctor has ever seen. Praise God! All the glory goes to Him!

Now, I am sure that most people would rather humble themselves rather than be humiliated by their enemies or even God. A few tips to do so include praying and seeking God, staying in His presence, embracing humiliation, and constantly checking your motives. If you pray and seek the Lord, it keeps your perspective right. When we go to God with all of our needs, it shows Him that we know we need Him and cannot live without Him. Staying in God’s presence is important because the only way to combat the flesh is by the power of the Holy Spirit. Only He can keep us constantly in check and help us to not become prideful. Another good piece of advice is to always check your motives. Are you doing things to please God or man? If your motive behind something is selfless and not seeking anything in reward, you know that God is at work and your heart is one of humility. On the other hand, if you are trying to please others, you are dealing with a prideful heart. You should pray that God would show you your areas of pride so that you can humble yourself. If you do not conquer and destroy your pride, it will end up destroying you and the most important aspect of your life- your relationship with God.

Works Consulted

Taylor, David. Triumph in Humility; Victory Over Pride. St. Louis: Joshua Media

`Ministries, 1999. Print.

"Bible Encyclopedia Online." Bible Encyclopedia Online. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 Dec. 2013.

"100 Bible Verses about Humility." What Does the Bible Say About Humility? N.p., n.d.

Web. 11 Dec. 2013.

Cilluffo, Joseph. Prayer: Walking and Talking with God. Rochester: Rochester Media,

1996. Print.