It was one of the worse insults we could bestow on a friend: “She’s smelling the clouds.” Simply put, the friend had turned up her nose on the creative endeavor my sisters and I had planned for the neighborhood for something better—if that were even possible. Smelling the clouds was our euphemism for being a snob, and one we used without a hint of irony.

According to the esteemed Cambridge Dictionary, a snob not only judges people’s importance mainly by their social position but also “gives a very high value to any quality which that person believes makes him or her better than other people.” It’s the second part of the definition that creates some dissonance, because as Christians, don’t we have a quality that makes us better than other people? Say the quality of our righteousness?

This perceived righteousness of ours could have potential upsides. Instead of feeling inferior to a culture gone awry, we can feel superior that we’re right and those others who sit in deep darkness are wrong. We shine our lights brightly among ourselves, assured of our rightness. It also would make it easier to follow the Apostle James’ instruction in James 2:1-4 to not show partiality. We wouldn't be interested in showing the person with fine clothing and wealth the best seats in church. We would be too busy saving them for ourselves.

There is one major sticking point in all this. Righteousness isn’t a quality anyone inherently possesses. God doesn’t change us into better people, he changes us into new people. “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold the new has come.” (2 Corinthians 5:17) It has never been, nor will it ever be, our righteousness that saves us. “For if, because of one man’s trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ.” (Romans 5:17)

In his blog “Does the Pursuit of Godliness Lead to Self-Righteousness?” (posted on The Gospel Coalition site on May 7, 2024), Trevin Wax wrote: “Of course, the pursuit of godliness is a dangerous path; it’s easy to be ensnared in pride, to wander into pomposity and fall into self-righteousness. Those dangers are real.

”But rightly understood, pursuing godliness ought to remind us of the massive distance between us and God. The bigger God is in our vision, the smaller we feel. The more we look up to him, the less we could even think of looking down on our neighbors. The closer we get to God, the more we see how far is left to go.”

When my head is in the clouds and I'm pursuing God in my own way, I am forgetting the way of Christ, who came to pursue me when I wasn't interested and was not running to but away from God. Pursuit is only possible because of being pursued.

There are days I am so pre-occupied with smelling the clouds that I trip and fall flat on my face, which is a grace as I land exactly where I should be before God.