Pride Cometh Before a Fall--Is that how it goes?

I haven’t blogged this past week. Lena and her mother have been in Egypt all week. For a long time, we have wanted Lena’s mother to be able to have a real vacation. And finally, that little dream was able to come through this week. I am waiting for them to arrive as I type.

My virus seemed to drag on throughout the week and really slowed me down. With Lena being gone, it was made all the worse. Just not in much of a mood to blog.

But here’s a little run down on the week. I learned how to send text messages to Egypt. That kept me sane. The UEC celebrated it’s 4^th year of official operation. That was a great milestone for us though we didn’t mark it with a grand celebration as we have in the past. I had to cancel my Tuesday English/Bible classes.

I did start working on another graduate class—this one is taught by a social anthropologist on the topic “Cross Cultural Leadership.” At first, it was terribly dull but slowly I am seeing the sense of all this stuff. I have to write two big papers for the class. One is to be an management audit and another is a comparison of two nations’ leadership preferences. Some of the research will have to wait till I get to the States in December.

My mom called on Saturday. Always nice to hear from them. They continue to struggle with health problems. Pray for them.

We had a nice crowd in the evening assembly. I preached on Jesus’ response recorded in Luke 13 to tragedy—how he refuses to use tragedy for political or social gain but directs the issue back to the heart of the individual. Instead of saying “this happened because of their sin” or “this happened because they are being oppressed” Jesus doesn’t say why it happened. He just calls his listeners to repent. Often when we are fighting a just cause we can get caught up in the "rightness" of our beliefs. This leads only to pride, and "pride cometh before a fall." Jesus is telling his listeners to save themselves from this pride before they fall, before tragedy comes to them.