Oh Lord it is hard to be humble.

Humility just rails against everything in me sometimes. If I was to see someone in an SUV with a nice family getting out and going into the Olive Garden for dinner on a Thursday night I may say to myself, “Good for him. He has obviously done well for himself.” We watched the Apprentice with Donald Trump last night and, although he did not get into the Trump helicopter, he encouraged the victors that one day, if they make a lot of money and choose to do so, they may have an 80 foot yacht to cruise NY harbor in. I think of “The Trump” as a decent man who has a decent family and gobs of money. “Good for him,” I say in my mind, “he has done well for himself.”

I want people to think I have done well for myself too. That I have put my talents to good use and made something positive happen. I want them to see my family, my house, my degrees, my Toyotas and say, “Well, there goes a man who has obviously made the right choices and has a good life.”

And then I remember that it will all be gone someday. I remember it may all be gone tomorrow. Like Job I may sit, scrape my sores, and say “Naked I came from my mother’s womb and naked I shall return there. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the Name of the Lord.” There is no higher picture of God than He who gives and takes away. And we are left the way we are. The position we hold before God is the reality we live with for the world to see: Every good and perfect gift has been given to us by the Father of Lights. I breathe deep for my flesh screams “No!” But the warm, whispering Wind smiles and speaks silence to the burning desire that pride has for me.