Thursday, December 17, 2009

Hubris

a Biblical thought...
For this reason he had to be made like his brothers in every way, in order that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, and that he might make atonement for the sins of the people. Because he himself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted. (Hebrews 2:17-18)

a Book thought...
The role of the Holy Spirit today is not to write Scripture. It is to apply Scripture. (p83)
a Dave thought... www.leadershipjournal.net
"We do ourselves a disservice by only studying success," writes Collins. A search and scan through the business and even church leadership literature suggests that few books explore the roots of failure. Most dote on promises of success.
Interestingly, the biblical writers are unafraid to write of failure. Mixed among the stories of great achievements in the older and newer Testaments are a host of accounts of personal and corporate failure.
Hubris—an arrogant conceit (Collins: "an excessive pride") that paves the way toward failure and its consequences—is all over the Scriptures. I'm tempted to say, without doing the homework, that there may be more failure stories arising from hubris than success stories rising from humility.
Samples: Goliath and his fellow Philistines are full of hubris when the giant takes on David, the shepherd. David himself is later caught in the thrall of hubris when he gets into trouble with Bathsheba. Uzziah, a 50-year king of Israel, is nose-deep in hubris when, it says, "he grew proud to his destruction." In each of these cases, no one could conceive that anything under their control could go awry. There was simply an assumption that they deserved success and didn't consider any downside consequences.

Hubris, a state of over-confidence in ourselves, our systems, and our successes, often makes leaders blind to points of weakness that are already bubbling up within an organization.

Just a thought.

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