It is good to work hard and achieve our goals. In fact, there are few things that compare to the joy we feel when all our hard work pays off. During this time, however, we should always be mindful of overconfidence. The mindset of overconfidence can fill our heart with pride and blind our eyes to the next battle we face. In competition, we see this folly often. A well-trained athlete will look at his next opponent with contempt and quickly underestimate him. He enters competition thinking it will be an easy win only to find that his competitor was fiercer that he originally anticipated. We see examples of this in Scripture. We remember men such as Goliath who thought the battle against David was going to be an easy win. Goliath looked at David and said, “Am I a dog, that you come to me with sticks?” And the Philistine cursed David by his gods. And the Philistine said to David, “Come to me, and I will give your flesh to the birds of the air and the beasts of the field!” (1 Samuel 1
The devil sat down to have a meeting with his top advisors. He said to them, “America has been known as a Christian nation for far too long. We need to employee a new strategy against them to bring them down and make them repulsive in the eyes of God.” One of his advisors spoke up saying, “We could flood America with great temptations for immorality. Once they start going after the lusts of the flesh, they will surely be downgraded before the world and repulsive to God.” The devil responded, “We have tried this. America has been on a moral decline for decades. Homes have been broken, they do not trust one another, and their love for God has been greatly reduced. Despite this, there are still far too many Christians. We need a new approach.” Another spoke up and said, “We could convince them that God does not exist. We’ll make up some other explanation for the origin of the earth. Once, they are convinced of this, we will make them believe that they are their own gods.” The