So, Honor Me

“Honor me before the people.” Oh, we’d never say that, it would be audacious and we’re too polite. Honor? Who wants to be noticed anyway?

The desire for honor has been around since the beginning of time. Man has an inborn desire to be noticed or to be someone or something. The above quote was King Saul speaking to the prophet Samuel. 1 Samuel 15:30 The desire for fame and honor was his ultimate demise, much like many kings to follow. Taking that quote at face value, it seems unbelievably arrogant. Yet was not he, the king of all Israel and did he not have the right to have people listen, honor, and obey him? Could I, could we be just as arrogant and not speak it?  Without question, that same malady though in different form, is still affecting people today. This problem reaches out beyond just leaders; the root of it affects all of mankind. This is not to say that everyone desires to be noticed or honored, but most people do not want to be ignored or spoken ill of.

Honor seeking has cost the lives of many men and much equipment in the wars fought around the globe. Man’s desire to achieve status, causes him to be reckless and arrogant. At times going against his better knowledge and judgment, hoping to succeed.

As a boy much to my surprise, my parents bought me a ten-speed bike for my birthday. How proud I was to have this bike! It had bigger wheels than any of the other of my school friends’ bikes, which could make it go faster, or so I thought. Living only three miles from school, my classmate who lived up the road from me and I would often ride our bikes to school on nice days.

One bright spring morning while riding to school with my friend, I decided to show him just how fast my bike could go. There was a small hill which was a perfect place to see how much speed you could build up. Without telling him anything, I let him get part way down the hill before I began to descend. Pumping the pedals as hard as I could, I began to overtake him. My intention was to whisk past him, almost touching as I passed, and surprise him. Well, we all know that these kinds of things never go quite as planned, for sure when there is no planning or thinking ahead. At ten to twelve years old, we don’t process what could happen in these situations. As I began to pass him, he looked to see where I had stayed, leaning into me as I passed. Unfortunately, he was the one who received the damage to himself and his bike, as our handlebars caught each other, sending him flipping into the ditch. I felt terrible and still do at what happened. Perhaps he may even read this and remember, and still feel a little put out with me; I would not blame him if he did. He pulled himself out of the ditch and wobbled on to school with a bent rim and a few scrapes that the teacher patched up with some Band-Aids. Sadly, many times selfish desires to be noticed, come at the expense of hurting someone else.

The desire for honor, eventually destroyed Haman, in the book of Esther. Esther 3:5God did not hear the Pharisee’s prayer because of it Luke 18:11, and countless more characters in the Bible suffered from this evil.

Man is subject to honor seeking and vanity; for sure if he does not have God in his life. The writer of the book of Ecclesiastes seemed to have a vision of it when he said: Ecclesiastes 2:11 KJV Then I looked on all the works that my hands had wrought, and on the labour that I had laboured to do: and, behold, all was vanity and vexation of spirit, and there was no profit under the sun.

Naaman said, “Behold I thought he would come and strike his hand over the place and recover the leper.” 2 Kings 5:11 yet he found out that his healing did not come with pomp and show, but in humble obedience to go wash in the dirty Jordan River.

Honor is a funny thing. A person in one way likes to not be noticed, but neither does he want to go unnoticed. When honor is taken to oneself, sooner or later it will cause him to stumble and fall. It is the pride of his heart that causes him to seek honor in the first place.

I know I keep bringing up Bible characters, but way back there was the situation with Cain and Able. Able was honored or accepted of God whereas Cain was not. This caused Cain to be angry enough to kill Able. What all transpired that caused Cain to become so angry is a mystery. Likely there is more to the story than we have record of. Yet it shows how far back this honor seeking problem goes. Genesis 4:8

Then there is the tower of Babel, which the people built. They thought they would make a name for themselves above all that was in the earth. Perhaps they thought they would be able to reach God, who knows. However, God was not happy with them and their tower. His solution to stop them was to mix up their language. Up until that time the whole world spoke one language. Then without warning they could not understand each other. It must have been chaos there for a while. Just a simple thing that God did, and the whole project came to a halt. Well that is it was a simple thing for God to do. Genesis 11:4

You would think after considering all these stories of people being humbled, that we would not want anything to do with honor seeking. I guess we are just human and cannot help ourselves. I don’t think it’s wrong to want to appreciate being well thought of. But when it becomes a driving force, watch out! It creeps up on us. It can be in writing this article, leaving thoughts in Sunday school, cooking a meal for guests, the fastest car, the most powerful truck, the biggest beard, the most outstanding dress pattern, and the list could continue. For some reason, we tend to wonder what honor the young man is seeking with his truck, but turn around and want to be noticed for our deep thoughts in Sunday school, or our introduction in church. Apparently if it is more spiritual, we tend to think it’s okay.  Take a moment and think about that. Is it really? What difference is it if both bring honor, our seek to bring honor to ourselves? Who gave you those inspiring thoughts? Who gave you your ability to make money and purchase nice earthly things? “Well of course,” we’d say, “God did!” Then how come do we think that we can use them to make other people think we are important?

What if we could all be humble Joes and Marys. No honor seeking, just living honestly and humbly with each other like God created us. If Joe received compliments, we’d rejoice for him. If Mary was able to make people laugh, we’d just laugh to! No pressure to perform or anyone trying to tell the biggest story. Imagine living without coveting someone else’s gift,  praise or honor? Imagine a church, a community, or a world that way! It would be so peaceful it would be like heaven in earth.

It is possible, when you have a body of believers who are committed to serving the Lord, to experience this kind of fellowship. It does not mean it’s automatic, but when each one seeks their honor from God rather than men, the natural result is peace. Yet we are human and humans are subject to pride and vanity. If we live our lives humbly submitted to God, we will find ourselves avoiding many of these pitfalls of human nature. It will take the power of God to deal with our human nature, and the pride in our lives.

Daniel 4:37 KJV Now I Nebuchadnezzar praise and extol and honour the King of heaven, all whose works are truth, and his ways judgment: and those that walk in pride he is able to abase.

Proverbs 16:18-19 KJV 18 Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall. 19 Better it is to be of an humble spirit with the lowly, than to divide the spoil with the proud.