Too Big for Your Britches

My mother used to warn me about "getting too big for my britches."  Trust me.  It was not her way of throwing a compliment my way.  I remember one time rather distinctly.  I had come home after my first quarter of college and carried with me all that I learned in my first Old Testaments survey class.  I had learned enough to know more than my preacher Dad and had gotten smart enough to announce to my Mom that Sunday morning that I would not be going to church.  So, after I got up from bed, I went to church.    

No one said aloud that I was "getting too big for my britches,"  but it was surely common knowledge that weekend.    "Getting too big for my britches" speaks of a problem a lot of us had growing up, but in recent years I have come to understand it to be the original sin.  Adam and Eve surely must have figured they knew more than God that day when the serpent came slithering into their presence and filling their ears with visions of grandeur.  This original sin continues to plague so many of us in these days.   There are a lot of new and novel ideas out there these days in the places where people let their values be shaped which makes folks too big for their britches.  They end up thinking they know more than they really know.    

There is a verse from Jeremiah which speaks to this condition which says, "'Thus says the Lord:  Stand at the crossroads, and look, and ask for the ancient paths,where the good way lies; and walk in it, and find rest for your soul."  (Jeremiah 6:16)  Too much is thrown away and regarded as irrelevant simply because it is old.  Being new does not guarantee better, or truth.  Actually, the values and ideas which have sustained generations of people and given strength and life to our communities may speak more truth than some of the things we tote home and make us seem like someone who needs to hear my Moma's warning about "getting too big for your britches."