My friends, settle in here with me for a moment. Look out this window at the dusty streets of Akasia, where the old acacia trees stand as silent witnesses to generations of human striving. Can you see it? All around us, the desperate, dazzling dance of a world trying to build its own towers, to claim its own rain. This is not just a story about ancient kings; it is the headline of our 2025 newsfeed, the silent script of our own hearts. Let us talk plainly about the termite of pride.
The Hollow Towers of 2025
This past year, we have seen the blueprints for new Babels everywhere. We strap sleek, metallic smart rings to our fingers, discreetly tracking our heartbeats, measuring our sleep, turning our very bodies into temples of self-optimization. We chase the latest “must-have” charm—a fuzzy little monster from a blind box—hanging it from our bags as a tiny, quirky testament to our unique taste. We seek the “glass skin” glow from LED face masks, pursuing a perfection that is visible, tangible, and utterly skin-deep.
Is this evil? No. A butter-yellow sundress is lovely; a new game console brings joy. But I tell you, my friends, these are the modern bricks and mortar. They are the materials with which we build a narrative of self-sufficiency. The message is subtle but pervasive: Your status, your wellness, your appearance, your entertainment—these are the harvest of your own hands. Claim the credit.
This is the ancient lie, repackaged for our age. It is the giraffe’s high head, surveying a landscape of its own making, while the enemy’s snare lies hidden at its feet. We saw the trap snap shut this year in the grim headlines: a nation boasting sporting glory while miners perished underground and buses plunged off mountain passes. A political landscape fractured by pride, where coalition talks collapse and the pursuit of power overrides the pursuit of unity. We export our precious minerals and import our refined fuels, a trade imbalance that mirrors our spiritual state—exporting the raw gifts of God and importing fragile, manufactured identities.
A War for Your Worship: The Anatomy of Pride
We must define our enemy. Pride is not mere confidence. It is the active, willful displacement of God from the throne of your life and the installation of self in His place. It is the cosmological coup d'état of the human heart.
Let us formulate the argument clearly, for our enemy loves confusion:
1. Premise One: Every good thing—life, breath, talent, opportunity, salvation—is a gift from the Sovereign Giver (Acts 17:25; James 1:17).
2. Premise Two: To receive a gift and attribute its possession or its results solely to one’s own effort, wisdom, or inherent worth is to commit a fundamental error in gratitude and truth.
3. Premise Three: Pride commits this exact error. It says, “My power and the strength of my hands have produced this wealth for me” (Deuteronomy 8:17, paraphrased).
4. Conclusion: Therefore, pride is not just a moral failing; it is a philosophical falsehood, a lived lie about the nature of reality. It is idolatry directed inward.
A common objection arises: “But does God not want us to be strong? To work hard and enjoy the fruits of our labor?” Of course! This is the delicate balance. Diligence is a virtue; celebration is a command. The fatal pivot happens in the attribution. The humble heart works diligently as an act of stewardship and celebrates as an act of thanksgiving. The proud heart works diligently as an act of ownership and celebrates as an act of self-congratulation.
The great theologian and philosopher Augustine saw this clearly. He taught that pride is the beginning of all sin because it represents a turning away from the changeless Good (God) toward a changeable good (self). It is preferring the flickering, unreliable light of your own candle to the eternal, sun-like radiance of God. In our South African context, we have seen the rotten fruit of this pride institutionalized. We had a system that, tragically, claimed a Christian basis while erecting a monument to racial pride and self-preservation. It was a national-scale Babel, and its crumbling left scars we still feel today. This is where the “prophetic confrontation” you asked for must land: any theology, any church, any personal faith that justifies self-exaltation over another person made in God’s image is not Christianity. It is baptized pride, and it smells of hell.
The Humble Soil: Where True Life Grows
If pride is the termite, humility is the rich, life-giving soil. And I must tell you, humility is not thinking less of yourself; it is thinking of yourself less. It is the great liberation from the exhausting project of self-construction.
I saw this soil in my own Akasia. Years ago, when the industrial boom came and the Roslyn complex rose, many flocked here for work. My father was one. He was a proud man, a builder. He could look at a foundation and tell you if it would last a century. But his own foundation was sinking. He chased contracts, status, the bigger house in Theresapark. The termites were busy. Then, in a twist only God could write, the project that was to be his crown jewel collapsed due to a supplier’s fraud. He was ruined, professionally and personally.
For months, he sat on our small porch, staring at the acacia trees. The proud builder had nothing to build. And there, in the silent rubble, he heard it. Not a voice, but a verse, long-forgotten from a childhood in the old Dutch Reformed Church that still stands as the historic centre of The Orchards. “Unless the Lord builds the house, the builders labor in vain” (Psalm 127:1). He told me, “My son, I was building my own house. I was claiming credit for the rain that softened the clay and the sun that baked the bricks. I never once thanked the Giver of the clay and the sun.”
That brokenness was his first taste of humility. It was bitter, like soil. But in that soil, something planted long ago finally germinated. He went from builder to caretaker, using his skills to fix fences for widows and patch roofs for pensioners for nothing more than a cup of tea. The man who wanted to be a king found his honour in being a servant. The proud giraffe lowered its head and, for the first time, saw the beautiful, solid ground beneath its feet.
Your Choice: The Tower or The Tree
So, here is your choice today, framed by the eternal logic of the Gospel.
You can continue building your tower. You can curate your life, collect your charms, optimize your data, and chase your colour of the year. You can claim the rain and the harvest. But the Scripture declares unequivocally: “God opposes the proud but shows favor to the humble” (James 4:6). You are building against the gravitational pull of the universe, which is set to humble every exalted thing (Isaiah 2:11-12).
Or, you can be a tree.
Like the acacia of Akasia,sink your roots deep into the soil of humility. Acknowledge with every breath: “This is a loan. My health, my intellect, this very moment—a gift from You.” True liberation is found only in submitting to this reality. When you do, a miraculous exchange happens. The pressure to pretend evaporates. The hunger for status is sowed under. You are freed to work for an Audience of One, to love without needing credit, to stand firm when the winds of crisis blow because your roots are in the Rock.
The cross of Jesus Christ is the ultimate demolition of pride and the definitive planting of humility. At the cross, the only One who had the right to claim credit for everything chose instead to be credited with the sin of everyone. The Master Builder became the dismantled ruin, so that in Him, our hollow towers could be destroyed and we could be replanted as living trees in His everlasting kingdom.
Therefore, lay down your brick today. Cultivate the daily, hourly habit of grateful acknowledgement. In your office, as you succeed, whisper, “Thank You, Giver.” In your home, as you love, mutter, “This grace is from You.” In your heart, as you worry about tomorrow, pray, “My breath is in Your hands.”
The termite cannot eat the living wood of a tree rooted in grace. Choose the soil. Choose the cross. Choose to be an acacia in God’s garden, and you will find that honour, deep and lasting, grows wild and free all around you.
May this truth anchor you in Akasia, in Pretoria, and in every corner of this beautifully broken world. Amen.
https://podcasts.apple.com/za/podcast/the-termite-of-pride/id1506692775?i=1000743139949
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