“Be not wise in your own eyes; fear the Lord, and turn away from evil.” (Prov. 3:7)
How foolish to pride oneself on one’s gifts and thereby elevate oneself above others. What have we not received from our Father? Even if we have contributed through diligence and study, everything has still been given to us by God.
It is a simple realization, yet crucial to the fundamental attitude of our lives: if we attribute everything to God and express this accordingly, divine wisdom will take root in our souls. The honor and praise of God come first for us. We will therefore be careful not to put ourselves in the spotlight or view ourselves with vanity.
The fear of God at work within us—as a gift of the Spirit—will ensure that we do not seek to rob our heavenly Father of His glory before others. This can happen easily, and we may not even realize it. Yet whenever it happens and we fail to establish, at least inwardly, a grateful connection with God, we obscure the truth instead of giving glory to the One to whom it is due.
We take one more piece of advice from the Book of Proverbs: “turn away from evil”. This requires more vigilance than fear, for evil does not always come to us in an outwardly terrifying way; rather, it can conceal itself to deceive us even more easily.
Vigilance teaches us to turn away from evil immediately. Our inner connection with our Father grants us a kind of “spiritual discernment” that enables us to quickly distinguish what comes from God, what is merely human, and what is even a demonic deception. Nothing dark should influence our soul; rather, may the light of the Lord illuminate it!