Don’t Let the Pride Get in Your Eyes
Likewise you younger people, submit yourselves to your elders. Yes, all of you be submissive to one another, and be clothed with humility, for
“God resists the proud,
But gives grace to the humble.”
Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time. – 1 Peter 5:5-6 NKJV.
In 1973 we moved our mobile home from Oklahoma City to my parent’s farm. I had graduated from college at midterm and found a sales job with a automotive parts distributorship. All went well until the oil shortage. Gas prices went up and as cars were driven less, fewer parts wore out. I was laid off in December 1973 about Christmas time. In a few weeks I went to work for another parts company, but this lasted only a couple of months. Jeanie went back to work, and I was home taking care of our one-year-old son.
It was a frustrating time of being without work. I began to read through the New Testament and for the first time read completely through it. I decided I would go back to Oklahoma City. Go to law school. Live with my sister until I could afford to move my family back. The night before I was leaving my father-in-law called to offer me a job at the cotton gin where he was the manager. This would not be a white-collar job. It would be a minimum wage hard work kind of job. I didn’t want to do it. After all I had a college degree. But then I had been reading God’s Word and God spoke to me about my pride.
I went to work with my father-in-law, Leon Pruet. It was one of the best decisions of my life. We tore out old machinery and installed new machinery through the summer. In the Fall, I stayed on for the ginning season and worked on the press where the cotton is compressed into bails. I gained a different kind of education and gained a deep respect for the godly life my father-in-law led. Pride almost robbed me of one of the greatest experiences of my life.
Don’t let pride rob you of life!