Today is Big Word day on TBC, and our word is consternation. It means “feelings of dismay, typically at something unexpected.” Something like, I don’t know, LeBron James coming up short on his personal quest to win a championship by playing on a team stacked so deep with talent that experts said there was almost no way they couldn’t win. But they didn’t. It was unexpected, too, the way they lost 3 straight games with LeBron playing the Invisible Man at the end of each of them.
Here, then, are my thoughts as I experience “LeBronsternation…”
There is something so innate within us that it is rarely ever recognized. It slips into our speech so easily that it is imperceptible, and even when it is blatant, we stop short of calling it what it is because we don’t really see the danger in it. Perhaps if it was a four-letter word, we’d be more apt to shine the light of truth on it, but since it has more than four, we don’t. It is powerful enough to bring kingdoms to their knees and, yet, it never happens overnight. Like a vine, it grows slowly, quietly, until it is finally in place to pull the noose around the neck of the unsuspecting. It was at the center of the greatest failed coup in the history of the world, and it will be at the center of future coups for generations to come. Relentless, calculating, and cold, it works behind the scenes whispering self-help mantras to anyone who will listen. It’s pride.
Pride filled the imagination of a beautiful angel who wanted to take his talents to the throne of God, and led to the destruction of that devil and those angels who sided with him. The consequences of that prideful action have been far-reaching, and today you and I are left navigating this life like men in a river watching for the sudden strike of a constrictor. Pride searches for us and tells us stories of what could be if people would only see how great we know we are, and if we’re not careful, it will get us in its grip and squeeze the life from us.
I thought a lot about this last night as I watched the Dallas Mavericks defeat the Miami Heat for the NBA championship. I recalled The Decision, a prime-time special paid for by LeBron James in order to announce where he would be playing basketball this season. I replayed the words that have been burned into the hearts of every Cleveland Cavalier fan forever: “I’m taking my talents to South Beach.”
This is what the LORD says: “Let not the wise boast of their wisdom or the strong boast of their strength or the rich boast of their riches, but let the one who boasts boast about this: that they have the understanding to know me, that I am the LORD, who exercises kindness, justice and righteousness on earth, for in these I delight,” declares the LORD. (Jeremiah 9:23-24)
Pride. It causes us to boast in what we feel are our strengths. The wise about their wisdom, the strong about their strength, the rich about their wealth. LeBron about his mad ball skills. It makes us feel like we’re the piece that’s been missing. “If only I was the boss…the teacher…the President.” We see it as ambition, and applaud people for having upward mobility and career goals. We wish we had the nerve to say what they say and do what they do, and yet somewhere deep inside all of us, we know that we can’t quite picture Jesus saying and doing the same things we’re hearing from and seeing in them.
Am I the only one having a hard time picturing Jesus’ response to our need for a Savior being, “I’m taking my talents to Bethlehem?”
The longer I serve Jesus, the more I see in Him a Savior who boasted in His relationship with the Father. He didn’t talk about how once He was resurrected He was going to win, not 1, not 2, not 3, not even 4, or 5 or 6 billion people to Him. He just kept on loving God and loving the people around Him. I want to boast in knowing that Savior, and in understanding that it isn’t about me and what I can do for people, but rather what He has done for people.
Pride blinds us to what could happen. It causes us to believe that the best perceived end is the guaranteed end. When James joined the Heat, he and Chris Bosh and Dwayne Wade had a big party, err, press conference, and announced with index fingers raised how they were going to be a dynasty. Pride makes us count our chickens before they hatch, because pride convinces us that it’s not possible for us to do anything but have chickens, and not just any chickens, but the best chickens ever.
It’s sickening, really, especially in light of a Savior who came to seek, to serve, and to save. His eyes looked outward. Always. A total failure at self-promotion, He instead chose the route of self-demotion and as a result was made more upwardly mobile than anyone ever has or will be (you can read about His career path in Philippians 2:5-11). He walked on the side of justice and kindness, and those of us who love Him might want to consider walking there with Him.
Walk that path with Jesus very long and you’ll begin to see there isn’t room on the road for pride, because there isn’t room in the presence of Jesus for our selfishness and ambition. Sometimes I watch the premature celebrations in sports, or the over-hyped promotions in church programs, and think that pride must stand for Predicting Ridiculous Individual Deeds Enthusiastically. Too harsh? Maybe. One thing is sure, though. Not only does pride lead to a fall, but it almost always ensures that there’s no one there to catch us when the inevitable happens. It’s not that they don’t care. They’re just too busy celebrating the victory of the guys who weren’t jerks.
