I’ve been doing some radio interviews recently—not as a host, but as a guest. Mostly about my book, but the conversations bounce around a bit. The other day a talk show host in Ocala, Florida asked me point blank:
“As a minister yourself, how do you keep from letting things go to your head like the Reverend J. Frank Norris seemed to?”
Of course, Norris is the subject of my book, THE SHOOTING SALVATIONIST—the story of how he shot and killed an unarmed critic in his church office and faced the Texas electric chair back in the 1920s.
It was a great question. I mumbled something about how God gave me a wife and three daughters who act as regular agents of humiliation.
But seriously—PRIDE is the great sin of leadership in general and ministry, in particular.
I conduct a regular Friday morning men’s Bible study group at our church. We meet at 6:00 a.m. and it is called, appropriately, the RED EYE. We are looking at the life of King David right now and today we examined his youth and call to the throne.
Which means we talked about his predecessor—King Saul.
Curious fellow.
He had all the native skills and natural gifts of a leader. And he looked the part.
He even started out well.
But it didn’t last.
The pride bug bit him and he was infected for the rest of his life.
I am struck by the verse in I Samuel 15:
“So Samuel said, ‘When you were little in your own eyes, were you not head of the tribes of Israel? And did not the Lord anoint you king over Israel?’”
Little in your own eyes…
This thought is akin to the one written by the Apostle Paul in Romans chapter 12:
“ For I say, through the grace given to me, to everyone who is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly, as God has dealt to each one a measure of faith.”
Destructive pride always begins in the mind and heart. When we start actually believing the great things people say about us in moments of success—we cease being little in our own eyes.
J. Frank Norris was not the first, nor the last, to get caught up in himself and the lust of ambition. It happens every day.
The key, I think, is to keep ourselves little in our own eyes
.