In the pride of his face the wicked does not seek him; all his thoughts are, “There is no God.”
Psalm 10:4
The greatest killer of love for God is love for self. Pride is the deadly expression of believing in your own strength, wisdom, or abilities above God’s. In this verse, there are three “A’s” that pride produces in our lives: arrogance, avoidance, and abandonment. We will look at each briefly.
First, pride produces arrogance. The Hebrew of the first part of this verse literally reads that the one who does not seek God is as “wicked as the height of his nose.” Can you picture that? Pride is like someone with an abnormally large nose. He is so full of himself that he can’t see past his own two nostrils!
Like the big nose, this is what pride does: it focuses all your thoughts inwardly and selfishly. Someone did you wrong? You must take revenge. You don’t get what you want? You’re entitled to it. Do you see the danger in this? When your head gets so full of your own desires and self-declared “needs,” your vision becomes so narrow that you miss the point of your life: to live for God, and not for yourself.
And this will inevitably lead to the second production of pride: avoidance. The psalmist says that “in the pride of his face the wicked does not seek him.” This is actually very logical. How can someone who is so focused on themselves ever make time for God? There is great application here for us, a caution against seeing our time as primarily ours. Think about the measure of your day. Is there time for seeking God in it? Do you have a regular, daily time of prayer and reading the Word? If you honestly assess your life, what do you spend time on? What is the first thought and desire when you get out of bed? Be careful to not allow self-absorption to turn into a drastic lack of seeking God. Our tendency to rely on ourselves for purpose, strength, success, and control in our lives ironically keeps us from depending on the One who knows exactly what we need. Do not allow your nose of self-interests and self-desires to become so big you can’t bow your face to the ground in worship of God!
If not stopped, ongoing pride may lead to this last devastating effect in our lives: abandonment. Notice the thought life of the person described in this psalm: “all his thoughts are, ‘There is no God.’” This is no longer a casual “I forgot about God” due to becoming so focused on ourselves; this is an outright rebellion against Him because we believe in our own power and self-direction. In reality, this is like the very first sin of the Garden: throwing off God’s authority and Word in exchange for becoming wise in our own eyes. This is subtle; it doesn’t happen in one day. Rather, continued avoidance of seeking God due to focusing on our own dreams and desires will slowly produce in us an apathy towards the things of God, and, in turn, will cause us to no longer sense our need for Him. Why trust God for my needs when I can do it myself? Why pray when I have so much to do? Most of us will not readily admit to having such blatant thoughts, but isn’t this the underlying current of our lives when we don’t seek Him?
In application, let us be careful to avoid the pitfalls of pride today. Instead, let’s heed the words of our humble Savior who strongly reminds us: “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me” (Mt 16:24).
Or, as the psalmist would put it, don’t have such a big nose.