Happy New Year Everyone! When we began weekly devotionals here at SoulGrown, we named this column Water for the Soul. The hope for this column is to let the word of God speak to those who read. God tells us in Isaiah 55:10-11 that “as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater, so is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.” I pray that His word is providing water for your thirsty soul!
We began this venture at the beginning, Genesis 1:1. The holidays seemed appropriate to veer off that course for a bit, but now the new year has arrived and so we head back to Genesis where we last read about the progressive evil of mankind, God destroying man with the flood, but demonstrating His mercy and grace by giving mankind a do-over through Noah. God protected Noah and his family on the ark. When the rains ended and the water receded, Noah built an altar to thank and worship God for his goodness and mercy.
Read Genesis 11: 1-9
Do you ever feel like a toddler? Me do it! I want, I want! It seems pride starts early in our lives, right? I don’t know many people, if any, who don’t want things their own way in their own time, myself included. It seems as babies turn into toddlers, the rest of life is spent fighting that pride. Even people with low self-esteem battle with pride. There’s a real tendency to cover up our own insufficiencies with a false narrative of “I got this” even when deep inside we’re drowning.
“Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall.” Proverbs 16:18
After the great flood, mankind was granted a new opportunity to live a life honoring God and following Him. Noah’s sons had sons and began to repopulate the earth. As they grew in number they began to move eastward and settled in Shinar. Unfortunately, as the people moved and grew, their hearts began to turn away from God. Sound familiar? Before God sent the flood, Genesis 6:5 tells us that people were “only evil all the time.” Why is it that as populations grew they turned away from God and became self-centered, self-promoting and evil?
In Genesis 11 we read that the people wanted to stay right where they were and make a name for themselves. God had directed Noah and his sons to “be fruitful and increase in number and fill the earth” (Gen 9:1 NIV). The people in Shinar declared, “Come, let us build ourselves a tower that reaches the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves; otherwise we will be scattered over the face of the whole earth” (Gen 11:3-4).
As we read their call to action, notice the focus of their words: us, ourselves, we. That all sounds pretty self-centered and prideful. They discarded the words God commanded Noah and his sons and went with their own ideas and plans. They decided to stay where they were, build their own city and a tower that reached the heavens. They put themselves in the place of God, thinking they knew better and could depend only on themselves.
How did that self-promoting mindset become the focus of these early humans? How does that happen to any of us? We leave God behind. We forget about Him. We get so caught up in our own busyness and desires that we drift away from Him and fill up with pride. We become smart and wise in our own understanding and forget our need for Him. We become self-sufficient and confident in our own abilities. We become our own gods, directing our own plans and paths. In this passage of Genesis, we read of no mention of prayer, no seeking God. There is no mention of obedience to God’s directive to fill the earth. There is no mention of going to far away lands to spread God’s goodness. We see a mentality of, “Let’s stick together here where we’re comfortable, let’s take care of ourselves and make ourselves a big deal; we’ve got this.” Like a toddler, “me do it,” I want”.
What is the result of drifting into such pride and forgetting our Creator? In Noah’s day, people became “only evil all the time.” Could that ever happen again? You betcha.
In today’s reading, we see that God came down to Shinar to see the city and the tower they were building. He even said, “If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them,” (Gen 11:6 NIV). He knew how evil they were capable of becoming; no amount of evil would be too evil for them. So God confused them; he caused them to begin to speak in different languages so that they could not understand each other. They stopped building the tower and God scattered them all over the earth.
How much pride and forsaking God does it take for Him to come down and scatter us? I don’t know about you, but I sure see a lot of evil going on in our world today. There are terrorist attacks on innocent people, bribery of our politicians, scientists genetically modifying our foods, and our children. We get so comfortable in our own churches and with our own friends we fail to reach out to the newcomer, the lonely. We judge people for the sin we see in them and fail to see our own.
Maybe we need to realize that what God directed Adam and Eve, and Noah and his family to do still holds true today, “Be fruitful, increase in number and fill the earth.” He means for us to fill the earth’s people with His word, his goodness, his kingdom. He means for us to follow His ways and plans, and be filled with his fruit: love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control (Gal 5:22-23). He means for us to go spread the good news of Jesus Christ to everyone, near and far, to be his “witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth,” (Acts 1:8). He does not intend for us to go our own way, promote our own knowledge, and destroy what He created. He does not intend for us to be so self-absorbed that we don’t see people hurting. Ouch, I feel my toes being stepped on!
According to Hope Bolinger in “10 Things Christians Should Know about the Tower of Babel” the story of “the tower of Babel…teaches us about the dangers of going against God’s plan and command. Eventually, God’s plan had its way, and the people experienced a diversification of languages because of their disobedience.” As evil today continues to increase how will God get our attention? What might be our consequences, our “diversification of languages”?
How do we avoid becoming consumed with pride? It may help to realize some of the causes of pride. In an Adorned Heart article by Christina Daniels, she discusses seven reasons for pridefulness including insecurity and low self-esteem, fear of vulnerability, over-reliance on self, desire for control, perfectionism, lack of gratitude, and our own success and accomplishments. Part of overcoming pride in ourselves is to recognize that we actually have a problem and admit it. We can pray asking God to help us do better. We can look for opportunities to practice humility in place of pride. We can take a minute to notice and reflect on the impact of our prideful actions or words on others.
As we move into this new year, what will 2025 look like for each of us? Will we continue as a people to become more and more evil? Will pride have its way? Or will we humble ourselves and follow God’s ways, turn to Him for help in being more like Christ? We have the opportunity to do things differently than we have in the past year, or years. With each new year, we often make resolutions to do things differently or better than before. It’s a time for new beginnings, fresh starts! It’s a time to reflect on the past and resolve for better. This could be a year to take off our pride and put on humility.
“Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.” James 4:10
Worship: “Take My Life and Let it Be” by Chris Tomlin
Find Tracy on Facebook at Tracy Fields Todd, Writer, and on Instagram at @tracyftodd.
