THE DANGER OF THINKING TOO HIGHLY OF OURSELVES

We often stand taller in our own minds than we do in reality. Pride stretches us, inflates us, blinds us—until the creature begins to imagine himself the Creator, and the dust begins to boast against the One who shaped it. Some hearts refuse to bow, not because they are strong, but because they are swollen. They forget that we are not self-made beings but God-made souls, breathed into life by mercy and sustained by grace. And when a man begins to believe he is more than he truly is, trouble sprouts like weeds in the garden of his heart. Sin grows easiest in the soil of self-importance.

“Upon what meat doth this our Caesar feed, that he has grown so great?” Shakespeare’s old question from Julius Caesar still rings in the chambers of the proud. But the answer is simple: he feeds on illusions. He eats the bread of self-exaltation, drinks the wine of his own praise, and fattens himself on borrowed glory. Pride is always starvation in disguise—it promises to elevate us, yet it only empties us of the very humility that makes a soul beautiful before God.

Scripture cuts through the fog with holy clarity: “For I say…to everyone who is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think” (Romans 12:3). We are creatures—beloved creatures, redeemed creatures, image-bearing creatures—but still creatures. When we forget that, we fall. When we remember it, we rise.

True greatness is found not in pretending we are more than dust, but in kneeling before the God who lifts dust into glory. Christ Himself—equal with the Father—“made Himself of no reputation” (Philippians 2:7), teaching us that humility is not a weakness but the very posture of divine strength.

It is only when we empty ourselves of our imagined greatness that God fills us with His real greatness. And it is only when our hearts bow low that grace can lift them high.

BDD