Faithful Boasting

UV 3646/10000 Faithful Boasting Thus says the Lord, “ Let the one who is wise and skillful boast in his insight; let not the one who is mighty and powerful boast in his strength; let not the one who is rich boast in his (temporal) satisfactions and earthly abundance; Jeremiah 9 v 23 Boasting is a psychological need of man in order to boost his morale. We all do it subtly or openly in order to boost our sagging morale or to inflate our egos. Hence, when someone claims to be the richest person in the country or the world, the strongest man in the country or world, it is boasting. History shows that those who boast get bested, busted, booed or booted. Even Alexander with the epithet , the Great had to bite the dust before the spectre of early death. The brainiest guy in my class for whom there was little competition even nation-wide or perhaps world-wide died recently. The strongest guy in my IPS batch passed last week after a sudden illness. Reminders not just of our own mortality and vulnerability in a world affected by the Covid pandemic but a pointer to set greatest store not by such optics, metrics and extrinsics but to knowing our Creator who alone can redeem us. We cannot, therefore, boast (even secretly in our inner man) of our wisdom, our skills, our strength, our power, our status, our family, our attainments, our wealth, our influence, our race, our nationality or our religion. We can only boast or claim to understand, believe and know the One who not only created us but took upon Himself the responsibility to redeem us from our vain ways. We can only claim and take pride in the claim that we know that the Lord is the only One who practices love, kindness, justice and righteousness on the earth. That we revel in such things as these, the ‘intrinsics not the extrinsics’ of life. For the Lord God has revealed that He delights in such intrinsics. We draw our sense of satisfaction and fulfilment only in the Lord God. All things of this world that are otherwise vain and empty in themselves, a mere chasing of the wind or of shadows of life, become gain and purposeful, powerful and meaningful in conjunction and conjugation with God. When we boast in the Lord, it is not empty or futile for the Lord can do all that He claims. He can fulfill every promise in His word. The more we subtly and openly boast of our personal knowledge of the Lord the more our faith expands for the more we will experience His love, mercy, power and grace. We can freely boast in the Lord when our hearts are circumcised, when our own egos are sacrificed on the altar of praise, worship and thanksgiving of the Lord. Nothing is impossible for the Lord and hence, nothing is just an empty boast. Our hearts are filled with the Holy Spirit and the rivers of life giving water will flow therefrom. We live not in the flow and overflow of our own vain thoughts and emotions but in the flow and overflow of the love of God.