Pride goes before the fall

They say that pride is the mother of the vices, as it is the reason that angels fell.
Over the years, I have been invited to contribute to a number of charity dessert auctions along with some very talented bakers. I joined these culinary experts in helping to raise money to support everything from missions, to youth ministry, to our local museum.
At one of these auctions, one of the talented bakers had a kitchen disaster. I applaud her for putting pride aside and bringing her dish anyway. She truly humbled herself. And like those who get lifted up by humbling themselves before the Lord (James 4:10), she was lifted up. Believe it or not, the “cracked red velvet cake” brought in significant donations for a great cause.
Loss would have been felt if the baker had left the dessert at home. A greater loss would have been felt if she had tried to cover up her imperfections instead of openly admitting them. People can relate to our shortcomings. We get into trouble when pride and haughtiness enter into the picture.
Consider this parable: Alice baked a cake for the ladies' group bake sale, but when she took the cake from the oven, the center had dropped and the cake was horribly disfigured.
There was no time to bake another cake.
Thinking quickly, she looked around the house for something to build up the center of the cake, and ended up grabbing a roll of toilet paper. She plunked it in and covered it with icing. It looked perfect.
Before she left the house to drop off the cake and head for work, Alice woke her daughter and gave her specific instructions to buy the cake the minute the bake sale opened. When the daughter arrived at the sale, she found that the cake had already been sold. She grabbed her cell phone and called Alice. Alice was horrified.
The next day, Alice attended a luncheon at the home of a friend of a friend. Alice didn’t really want to go because the hostess was someone who more than once had looked down her nose at the fact that Alice was a single parent and not from one of the founding families of the community, but she couldn’t think of a believable excuse to stay home.
Alice felt the blood drain from her body when she saw the dessert come out after the meal. It was her cake. Alice started to rush to tell her hostess all about it, but before she could get to her feet, the mayor's wife said, "What a beautiful cake!" Alice, who was still stunned, sat back down when she heard the hostess say, “Thank you, I baked it myself." Alice just smiled and kept quiet.
We smile, too, but the author of Proverbs was right. Pride does go before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall (16:18).