Pride and I'm not talking lions 1

I was thinking today what an awesome thing it is that God would work in our lives to keep us humble. I have been doing a considerable amount of reading on the Kings of Israel and Judah lately and the result has been very sobering for me. Not that I would consider myself anywhere connected to being a king or even an important person in this world (I consider this a privilege). However, one thing that all of the Kings had in common was their inability to be sinless followers of Yahweh. It is amazing/frightening to read how one right after another would be devoted to God and very passionate about serving Him, and then one day BAM! they would be sinning like the pagans they hated. Without exception they did this to at least some extent. Even David, whom the kingdom was named after, and the star was named after. David was considered one of the most devote Jews ever, a heart after God, and yet in his fallen humanity he committed adultery, and then murders the woman's husband. Later in life he demanded that a census be taken against the pleading of his ad visors, and the result was the death of 70,000 men. That is about as many men dead as people that live in Kalamazoo. That number doesn't include women and children. If women and children died too, the number of total people that died was probably closer to the population of Grand Rapids. Those are staggering numbers of people dead for a man considered to have a heart after God.
I think the major difference comes from the reaction that resulted in these different kings being confronted with their sin. David and Hezekiah are to examples of kings who turned away from their pride and humbled themselves before the Lord...