Walking with the Wise #474: Too Much of a Good Thing

“It is not good to eat much honey,


nor is it glorious to seek one's own glory.”

—Proverbs 25:27

Competition and doing well are not bad things in and of themselves. God has placed within each one of us an innate desire to do well, to compete, and to be challenged. It is also a natural desire to seek recognition, to be known and honored. However, too much of a good thing can be a bad thing when it becomes the overarching thing.

Consider the contrast between the use of honey and glory. Eat too much honey and you will get sick—simple as that. Not that eating honey is wrong. It’s not. Like everything in the world, it’s the excess that is the problem. The same is true with glory. There is no reason why you shouldn’t try to do your best and maximize your talent. It comes down to the question of stewardship—being faithful with what we have been given. To be faithful with your abilities means doing the best you can with it. To be unfaithful means squandering what you have.

Ambition is good provided that the ambition is rooted in doing one’s best, but ambition is bad if the motivation is to simply be better than everyone else. That’s the idea being communicated in this proverb. Doing well, seeking to do well, is good, but too much is bad. The Hebrew is literally, “to seek glory upon glory," that is, adding to for the sake of adding to what we already have, rather than being a faithful steward of what God has entrusted to our care.

Are you being faithful with what God has entrusted to your care? Are you doing to the best of your ability? Or are you trying to gain fame for yourself so as to make yourself look good and those around you look bad? The crucified life means dying to self, not living for it. The resurrection life means living the life of Christ—servitude, compassion, love, and faithfulness. Do your best, serve others, and don’t seek too much glory for yourself—it might make you sick. Amen.