CONFIDENCE MISPLACED

Of all the ugliness which the fall of mankind unleashed on the human spirit, it could be argued the drive to elevate one's self by pushing down others is unsurpassed in shamefulness.

Is it brought on by our awareness of continually falling short ourselves of the glory which could have - and should have - been ours? Is it an attempt to distract the world from our own shortcomings by redirecting attention toward those who are "beneath" us?

Whatever brings it on, sinful man relishes having someone to look down on!

And it's all relative.

I remember high school basketball games. Whenever we - the Shelbyville Golden Bears - would travel to little Morristown for a game, we loved to mock the Yellow Jackets as a bunch of hicks and hayseeds. But if we were lucky enough to make the sectionals, the Indianapolis teams would call us a bunch of hicks and hayseeds.

Sometimes we really have to stretch and use our imagination to find a scorn-worthy characteristic in another.  

I know of a man in South Dakota, living among a population of townsfolk largely descended from German immigrants to the U.S. He married a woman of German descent whose mother never liked him. She carried an unspoken grudge for decades.

One day, the mother-in-law was old and on her deathbed and her daughter worked up the courage to ask her, "Why have you never liked my husband?"

The mother replied, "Well ... you know!"

"No, mom, I don't."

Exasperated, the woman explained, "He's one of those Russian Germans!" 

And it was true - this man's family lineage, though German through and through, had immigrated to Russia for a generation or two before continuing on to the United States!

This tendency of sinful man to look down his nose at others was serious enough to be called out by Jesus directly. In 18:9-14 of his Gospel, Luke records the following:

9 To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everyone else, Jesus told this parable: 10 “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. 11 The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. 12 I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’

13 “But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’

14 “I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”

God knows exactly what's going on in our hearts. Whenever we look down on others, it is a blatant demonstration of a confidence which is truly misplaced.