God is Drawn to Humility

Continuing along my prayer thoughts...
I know I've been quoting a lot from Luke, but Luke does talk a lot about prayer. (Or recorded a lot of talk about prayer, I guess.)  And I was noticing that prayer seems to be kind of a central theme in chapter 18.  Throughout the chapter different points were standing out to me.  I touched on the first one in my last post.  The second one I notice is very clearly demonstrated in the next parable Jesus tells.
Two guys go up to the temple to pray.  (Remember the theme is prayer.)  One of them is a Pharisee.  This is someone who has studied the law to the extent that he's part of a particular group.  He knows what he's talking about Scripturally, and he leads a pretty good life.  He doesn't commit a lot of the "concrete" sins like adultery, murder, extortion, drugs, sex, and rock 'n' roll, (ha sorry had to throw that in) and people can look at him and see that he's trying to live a pure life.  The other guy is a publican.  He's part of a hated class of people, and he likely has committed some of these sins!  Extortion was a particularly common problem for publicans to have.  They have two different lives, but both come with different attitudes, and I believe if either had had the other's attitude, their results would have been different accordingly (yeah try to dissect that sentence).
The Pharisee walks up and says, "God, I thank thee, that I am not as..." *casts a side-glance to publican and sniffs before clearing throat and piously returning to praying* "...other men are.  Extortioners, unjust, adulterers.  Or even as...this...*spits out word*...publican." *wraps robes around him, and strides to another column, lifting his hand in the air haughtily*  "I fast twice in the week, (Tuesdays and Thursdays, you know).  I give tithes of all that I possess."
Whereas the publican doesn't even feel worthy to come as close to God's seat as the Pharisee does, but stands afar off, and won't even look up to heaven, but smites his chest and says, "God, be merciful to me...a sinner."
Then Jesus says that this man went to his house justified, rather than the other!  The publican, who likely had committed the "concrete" sins we were talking about went to his house justified, rather than the publican who didn't commit these "concrete" sins but did all these great things.  Why?  Because of the way they approached God in prayer.  I said in my last post that it's hard to be a hypocrite when you pray in secret.  I still think there's an element of truth to that.  But I should be careful about making a blanket statement like that.  I've been learning that even when praying, there's a certain attitude you have to have toward yourself and God in order to get God's attention.
God is drawn to humility!  Some of my favorite verses in the Bible have to do with this concept.  Psalm 51:16-17 is something I'll occasionally pray and it says, "For thou desirest not sacrifice, else would I give it: thou delightest not in burnt offerings.  The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken, and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise."  It says He won't despise that kind of spirit!  Something draws Him to it.  1 Peter 5:5 says to the younger Christians to submit themselves to the elder Christians, and to be clothed with humility, then gives this reason: "for God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace to the humble."  I love that.  It's beautiful. The reason is that God desires us to completely depend on Him.  HE's the one who will exalt us in due time.  He wants us to cast all our care upon Him, for He cares for us!  C.S. Lewis wrote something really profound about pride in Mere Christianity, and I wish I could remember exactly what he said, but the gist of it is that the reason God hates pride so much is that the very nature is of competition.  When we are prideful, in a sense, we are trying to compete with God.  And His glory can't be competed with.  He loves humility because we are casting ourselves at His feet and admitting that we can't do anything to save ourselves, but have to depend on Him.  And that's when He's able to work.
Jesus gives a visual example right after he told the parable I was talking about earlier, when little children are being brought to Jesus and the disciples try to get rid of them.  But Jesus stops them and says, "Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child shall in no wise enter therein."  He points them to the humblest member of society--a little child, and tells them that's the same attitude we have to have when approaching God.
In prayer, God is drawn to humility, because humility is just honest.  Seriously.  Think about it.  Where is boasting?  It is excluded.  If we have an inflated opinion of ourselves, we're just deceiving ourselves.  It's not the way things are.  In reality, if we were really faced with the glory of God like Isaiah was, like he did we would fall to our face and cry, "Woe is me, for I am undone!"  The fact is we ARE nothing.  We really AREN'T anything...without Him.  The first thing on the list of the 7 things God hates is a proud look.  When we come before God, we must come with humility.