God commands us to not commit idolatry and to not have pride. Meaning, he doesn’t want us to worship anything that isn’t him and that he doesn’t want us putting pride out there to show off to others.
I have always thought that I never put anything before God. I thought that I never worshipped anything other than God. I thought this until I realized something. I realized that I had a lot of pride in something. I realized that I had a ton of pride in my beard!
In Proverbs 16:5, it says that “The Lord despises pride; be assured that the proud will be punished.”. Dang! I had pride in hair on my face. I even put the care of my beard before reading God’s written word! I don’t know about you, but that sounds a bit like idolatry. I would spend 5-10 minutes brushing my beard in the morning. Sometimes I would but beard oil or beard balm in it. It was like a ritual in the morning. I would wake up and do all of that before even thinking about getting into God’s word.
I also realized that I had a lot of pride in it because it could get super long and full. I don’t know many 20 year olds that could grow a beard like I could. I took a lot of pride in how old it made me look. I also thought that it made me more attractive to girls and made other guys jealous. I thought that it made me look tough and made me more intimidating. I treated it like a mark of manhood and manliness. To say it bluntly, I was worshipping it. I don’t mean praying to it or stroking the magical powers from it. I mean that I put it in front of God and that I made it more of a priority.
When I read that Proverb and realized that, I spent a lot of time back and forth about if I wanted to shave it or not. 2 months to be exact. But man, God has some funny ways of just making things happen. A couple days ago, I was playing what are the odds with some of the guys. And lost badly.
For those of you that don’t know what this game is, never play it it’s rigged! You say “what are the odds that you…?”. It can be anything from licking a pole, to eating something nasty. It literally can be anything. Then you say a number like 1 in 100. Someone counts you down and you and the person that challenged you say a number. If you don’t say the same number, then you are safe. But if you say the same number, you have to do what they challenged you to.
Well, I lost what are the odds. One of the guys asked me, “What are the odds that you shave your head balled?”. I said 1 in 50. We both guessed 42!!! Stinking 42! How hilarious is that? I got my razor and gave it to him after dinner. Everyone heard about it and wanted to watch my get my head shaved. I felt the lord telling me to stop having pride in my beard. So, I decided to shave it. I told Davante to shave my beard off too. But we decided to get a good prank in at the same time.
He started shaving my head and there was a big crowd. Then, he “Accidentally” shaved part of my beard. I started saying “DID YOU JUST SHAVE MY BEARD!”. A little side note, everyone knew not to mess with my beard! Thanks pride! Anyways, everyone froze and it was dead silent. Some people tried to grab the razor from Davante, but I grabbed it and started doing it myself as I was laughing. It was a good prank. I will never forget the look of terror in everyone’s faces. It was definitely one for the books.
After shaving my head and beard, I felt a big relief and I felt stinking free! It was such a great feeling to be free from pride. It was also very humbling because a was a baby faced balled guy. I also hadn’t seen my own face under my beard in almost 4 years. My family is still confused about this, but I hope that this sheds some light on it. Haha.
Anywho, I want to encourage every single one of you to think about what you have pride in and what you are worshipping. It literally can be anything from a car to your nails or a phone. Sadly, pride is a weapon of satan. But God’s weapon of salvation and joy is so much bigger and far more powerful than satans.
Thank you for reading this blog post. I’ll see you in the next one! -Trev
