Ezekiel 29:3 Speak, and say, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I am against thee, Pharaoh king of Egypt, the great dragon that lieth in the midst of his river, which hath said, My river is mine own, and I have made it for myself.
Pride: Taking Credit for What You Steward
What kind of special crazy would you attribute to me if I told you that I made the sun rise this morning? Or, what if I told you that I not only own Scales Mountain on the Bill Rice Ranch, but that I made it. That is not just arrogant; it is insane. Yet, people have done this kind of thing. In fact, I think it is something you and I can be guilty of in our lives.
Egypt was an amazing power for many, many years, and she was birthed by the Nile. She had her prosperity, fertile land, transportation, and trade all because of the Nile. She was a mighty empire, and Pharaoh was the mightiest man in this mighty empire.
But, there was a sense of arrogance and forgetting who God was. Pharaoh fancied himself a great dragon, like a great Egyptian river croc that fed on the Nile, was buoyed up by the Nile, and sunned himself on the banks of the Nile. In Ezekiel 29, God essentially said, “No, you are not some great, dangerous croc. You are like a weed growing on the bank of the Nile. Israel has trusted in you, but you are nothing.”
Pharaoh had said, “My river is mine own, and I have made it for myself.” Did he really think that? Egyptians held their pharaohs to be nearly deity, and there is no doubt it would have been convenient for Pharaoh to be considered a god among those people whom he was trying to govern. So, I wouldn’t be surprised if the pharaohs believed they were gods. The bottom line is that their great sin that provoked God was not just their idolatry or immorality, it was their pride.
We see here that pride is a function of taking credit for what you steward, considering that you own something God made. Pharaoh said, “I made this river.” That may sound crazy, but don’t we do the same thing? We say, “I own this beauty. I own this brain. I own this gift.” We forget that what we have is a stewardship from God.
God said of Egypt, “Neither shall it exalt itself any more… And it shall be no more the confidence of the house of Israel… Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I will give the land of Egypt unto Nebuchadnezzar…I have given him the land of Egypt.” God owned Egypt; God made Egypt; and God gave it to Nebuchadnezzar.
Sometimes we become discouraged because we feel as if we don’t have as much as we wish we had. Other times we feel smug, arrogant, or superior because we have more than someone else has. What helps with all that is the realization that everything you have is a gift from God.
When you realize, recognize, and rest in the ownership or God, it gives you modesty, buoyancy, and encouragement when you might otherwise be discouraged. God made this world; God made you; God has gifted you. We can live a fulfilling life when we steward what belongs to God in the grace that God gives with it.