“Stop acting so proud and haughty! Don’t speak with such arrogance! For the Lord is a God who knows what you have done; he will judge your actions.
1 Samuel 2:3 NLT
When the New Year honours list was announced, I found it odd that so many of the people who had been honoured day how humbled they were. How can that be? It seems such a contradiction in terms. How can anyone feel humbled to be honoured?
A lot of people have honoured me by saying how good I am at something or other. The problem is that I am included in the list of people who have honoured me! I like praise. I like to hear how “good” I am. I often think that I actually deserve the honour – I’m proud of my achievements. I know I’m not good at everything – there are things I cannot do – but I’m good at what I can do.
However, God knows a lot of areas where I’m not good, and his definition of good is not limited to proficiency. He knows what I have done. He will judge me, and when he does I will be humbled. I really have to get a grip of that, and stop looking to be honoured by people. I need to work at being honoured by God. That is the only praise that matters.