Those two words have been juggling around in my head the past few days thanks to Luke, Job, 1 Corinthians and Exodus (the books I'm currently in on my reading plan).
Arrogance
Yesterday, I mentioned I Corinthians 13:4 which says, among other things, that love is not arrogant. God has revealed some arrogance through letting me chew on this verse. Until two years ago, there were three or four apartment complexes that fed into White Rock Elementary. They tore down a couple of them to make way for a new, fancy shopping center. That was one of the selling points when we bought our home. It does wonders for the school - now that we've gotten rid of most the apartment kids. The shopping center construction hasn't even started - but that doesn't matter. What matters, as bad as this sounds when you say it outloud, is that the apartment kids are gone.
But there are still a few complexes that feed into our school. Last week, believe it or not, a sixth-grader in our school (Kindergarten thru 6th grade are in the same building) was busted with drugs by drug-sniffing dogs that came through the school.
Last night, I heard my daughter tell her friends that she heard it was one of the kids from the apartments. Ah, of course, it had to be. In talking to her this morning about arrogance, I believe she was making an innocent comment. It exposed that our parents (me included) are quick to differentiate ourselves from the apartment dwellers. At some level, I believe I am better than them. That's arrogance, not love.
Fear
Should I fear God?
Luke 12:4 “I tell you, my friends, do not fear those who kill the body, and after that have nothing more that they can do. 5 But I will warn you whom to fear: fear him who, after he has killed, has authority to cast into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him! 6 Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? And not one of them is forgotten before God. 7 Why, even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not; you are of more value than many sparrows.
Job 28:23
“God understands the way to it (wisdom),
and he knows its place.
24 For he looks to the ends of the earth
and sees everything under the heavens.
25 When he gave to the wind its weight
and apportioned the waters by measure,
26 when he made a decree for the rain
and a way for the lightning of the thunder,
27 then he saw it and declared it;
he established it, and searched it out.
28 And he said to man,
‘Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom,
and to turn away from evil is understanding.’”
In Exodus, I'm reading the story of Moses, Egypt and the 10 plagues. What's more fascinating than the miraculous plagues is the stiff, stubborn hard-heartedness of Pharoh - not letting the Israelites go. Why was his heart so hard? Because God hardened it. Exodus 10:1 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Go in to Pharaoh, for I have hardened his heart and the heart of his servants, that I may show these signs of mine among them, 2 and that you may tell in the hearing of your son and of your grandson how I have dealt harshly with the Egyptians and what signs I have done among them, that you may know that I am the Lord.”
God's in full control.
