Proverbs 28:11 The rich man is wise in his own conceit; but the poor that hath understanding searcheth him out
Suppose you and a friend are at a coffee shop and you ask a stranger, “Hey, can you take a picture of us?” The stranger takes the picture and hands you back the phone. You say, “Thank you!” What is the first thing you do when you get your phone back? I think I know what you probably do. In fact, I think I know what your fingers do. You touch your phone and bring up the photo and look at yourself. That is what all of us do. We are all naturally focused on ourselves. It is called perspective. It is our spectacle. You think of spectacles, spectator, and spectacular. These are all about what we see and the way we see it.
Proverbs 28:11 reminds us of the importance of one’s perspective. The Bible says, “The rich man is wise in his own conceit; but the poor man that hath understanding searcheth him out.” He discovers and exposes the rich and self-conceited. “In his own conceit” is a Hebraism that means “in his own eyes.” So, the rich man is wise in his own eyes. There are a lot of very wise and wealthy people. There are a lot of very wise and poor people. But the truth is being rich and skilled in one domain can sometimes make us blind in all the other domains of our lives. That is true of any one of any skill.
Think about pride. It is not amazing that “in one’s own eyes” is translated “in one’s own conceit” because when all I do is see myself through my own eyes, it tends toward conceit, hubris, or pride. Pride is essentially a lack of perspective. It is conceit. Have you ever said, “If I were him, I would do thus and so”? Do you mean that if you were in his shoes, you would do thus and so? No, you mean that if he had your eyes. You wish you could make decisions for him. I know that feeling, but what it betrays is the natural inclination to think about life strictly from our own perspective or view.
Proverbs 26 says much about this. Verse 5 says, “Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own conceit.” Verse 12 says, “Seest thou a man wise in his own conceit? there is more hope of a fool than of him.” This is a fool’s fool, someone who is wise in his own eyes. Verse 16 says, “The sluggard is wiser in his own conceit than seven men that can render a reason.” Now without going into what these verses specifically mean, they are generally all about people who lack perspective. All of us tend to see things in our own eyes. That is a problem.
What are we to do? The answer is that humility helps us see clearly. When I say humility, I am not talking about thinking less of yourself. I am talking about thinking of yourself less. Better yet, it is to see oneself as God sees you. If I see myself as God sees me, then it will help me to see others as God sees them and help me to have a better perspective on everything.
Romans 12:16 says, “Be of the same mind one toward another.” How do you do that? It says, “Mind not high things, but condescend to men of low estate.” It is speaking of humility. Then it says, “Be not wise in your own conceits.” Proverbs 3:7 says, “Be not wise in thine own eyes: fear the LORD, and depart from evil.” If I consider myself wise, it is probably a dead giveaway that I am not and that I am lacking perspective. Humility is what helps us see clearly.
There are three things I thought about when I considered my own inadequacy and need. First, don’t lean on your own understanding. Proverbs 3 says, “Be not wise in thine own eyes: fear the LORD, and depart from evil.” Before that it says, “Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.” By nature, we do not know what we are missing. We don’t know what it is we don’t know. That is why comparison is always foolish. If we look at someone and say, “Well, I don’t have it as good as they have it” or “I’m better than they are,” we lack perspective. Don’t compare yourself. The Bible speaks of those who compare themselves among themselves as not wise. Don’t lean on your own understanding.
Second, cultivate self-awareness. Jesus said to first cast out the beam from your own eye, then you can clearly see the speck in your brother’s eye. Cultivate self-awareness, not self-absorption. Self-absorption comes naturally, but you should not be arrogantly intolerant of everyone. Have you ever seen yourself on video? No one in their right mind enjoys seeing himself on video. If you have seen yourself on video from behind your head, it takes you a moment to realize it is you. You don’t realize you are looking at yourself. It is a different perspective. You are looking at yourself from out of yourself, and we don’t usually have that kind of self-awareness.
Third, give others some space. Have you ever received a text that makes you miffed or indignant? Then there is a follow-up text and you realize, “Oh, they weren’t saying what I thought they were saying. They meant something else.” There are all kinds of voice inflections and color that you can’t see in a text. I don’t know what is going on in someone else’s mind. If I am quick to say something is not fair, I may or may not be correct, but the fact is, I don’t know what it is I don’t know. This can lead me to be totally tolerant of sin in my own life and have the wrong way of thinking. I need humility to help me see clearly.
Sometimes I think about someone else, “They just don’t understand me.” Maybe they do not, but maybe I am not understanding them as clearly as I should. All of us need help. We need God, and to see ourselves as God does. Then we can see other people as God sees them because humility helps us see cleary.