He Regards the Lowly

One of the things that interferes with our relationship with God is our own pride. Pride is what makes us resist or resent God's grace (or our need for that grace) and makes it difficult for us to accept God's love for us - we dislike the necessary admission of our weakness, imperfection and sin that accompanies grace, or we believe that our sin is too great for even His love and forgiveness to cover. Either we exalt ourselves or we make God less, when we walk the path of pride. And because we very much do need God's grace, because His forgiveness is far more than sufficient to cover our sins, and because His love is unfailing and unconditional, our pride puts us out of sync with reality. Eventually, keeping our heads and hearts in a dream world will result in colliding with something in the real world that we didn't see because it didn't exist in our delusions. That is, if we base our lives on perceptions and principles that don't align with reality, the disconnect and the tension will in the end lead us to pain and despair. After all, wherever God is not, despair takes root - and a proud heart has pushed God out.

For we have a great God who works in very different ways than a great king would. A great ruler in this world will usually seek out or allow into his presence those who have some special distinction or merit. A championship sports team, for instance, or the winners of a scholastic competition, or other heads of state or their ambassadors, might be allowed to meet the President. An average soccer mom from the Midwest would most likely be laughed at by the security guards if she tried to visit him at the White House! The greater the power and glory of the ruler, the less likely it is that the poor, normal, lowly people of his country will actually be allowed into his presence. It is an honor, after all, to see and meet someone so highly respected, and it is natural to expect that one ought to earn that kind of honor. And then, afterwards, one has every right to be proud of the achievement that merited the reward. But in the Psalms we read that,

"Though the Lord is on high,
Yet He regards the lowly;
But the proud He knows from afar." - Psalm 138:6

God is far greater than any earthly ruler, and yet He doesn't demand that we earn our way into His presence. He doesn't accept only those who have done great things or have some special distinction or notoriety to capture His attention. In fact, He does almost exactly the opposite! He gives grace to the humble, and lifts up those who do not exalt themselves. When He became a man, He lived among the poor and the oppressed, and rejected those who were mighty in this world. His desire for us is not that we should strive to win His favor by our own merits - first, it is impossible, and second, it centers our minds firmly on ourselves: we must always be thinking about what we are doing and how we are doing and whether or not we are good enough. He wants us to let go of our pride, of our need to earn His approval and make ourselves good enough, so that we can once more sing in tune with reality, and come to know Him deeply and genuinely in humility.