Walls, dysfunction, and humility, oh my!

Yesterday we looked at the danger of "whitewashing flimsy walls." Check out this verse I came across this morning from Proverbs 18:11:
"The wealth of the rich is their fortified city;
they imagine it an unscalable wall."

Being comfortable in life is no excuse for living with dysfunction either. In fact, comfort can be a powerful delusion keeping us from God's truth; just check out the church in Laodicea (Revelation 3:14-22) whose trust in riches actually deprived them and kept them from 'true riches'.

If we imagine our comfort as an unscalable wall, that's lying. The sad part is that we're lying to ourselves. And as the Word says:
"Because you have rejected this message,
relied on oppression
and depended on deceit,
this sin will become for you
like a high wall, cracked and bulging,
that collapses suddenly, in an instant.
It will break in pieces like pottery,
shattered so mercilessly,
that among its pieces not a fragment will be found
for taking coals from a hearth
or scooping water out of a cistern." Isaiah 30:12-14

That sounds a lot like God sending a hailstorm to knock down our "whitewashed flimsy walls" (see living with dysfunction). God hates it when we live with dysfunction. It is the sin of deceit. Let's be honest with ourselves and those we interact with. A lot of times being honest feels like we're tearing down the only defenses to our heart, and in a lot of ways we are, but check out the verses before and after the first verse I shared from Proverbs 18:
"The name of the Lord is a strong tower,
the righteous run into it and they are safe.

Before his downfall a man's heart is proud
but humility comes before honor." verses 10;12

We can build walls of deceit, or we be defenseless and run into the strong tower that is our Lord. Let's not depend on deceit so that God brings a hailstorm to make us depend on him. As the old hymn says, let's "humble ourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he will lift us up."
APK