Tag Archives: Pride

TIME TO DEAL WITH MY PRIDE

04 Sunday May 2014

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 Recently God made it clear to me that it’s time to deal with my pride. I knew I could no longer excuse or dismiss the way I behave when pride rears its ugly head in my life. It was time to let go of it and allow God’s Spirit to determine my response instead of my emotions. I’ve been troubled with this for some time, unable to enjoy God’s peace as I continue in my disobedience.

 Here is some of what C.S. Lewis says about pride in his book, Mere Christianity, Chapter 8 titled The Great Sin: 

            “There is no fault … which we are more unconscious of in ourselves. And the more we have it ourselves, the more we dislike it in others.”

             “…the essential vice, the utmost evil, is Pride. Unchastity, anger, greed, drunkenness, and all that, are mere fleabites in comparison: it was through Pride that the devil became the devil: Pride leads to every other vice: it is the complete anti-God state of mind.”

            “Other vices may sometimes bring people together: you may find good fellowship and jokes and friendliness among drunken people or unchaste people. But pride always means enmity – it is enmity. And not only enmity between man and man, but enmity to God.”

            “If you think you are not conceited, it means you are very conceited indeed.” (I love that one!!)

            “Pride gets no pleasure out of having something, only out of having more of it than the next man. We say that people are proud of being rich, or clever, or good-looking, but they are not. They are proud of being richer, or cleverer, or better-looking than others.”

 I went back to college to get my bachelor’s degree because “everyone” around me had one. Once I had that, I began noticing all the people who had master’s degrees. So I got one. Then, as I was working in my field, I noticed how many people had a specialized certification so I got that. Then I got a job where the majority of people had PhD’s. I made phone calls, eager to begin my work earning that degree. But I was tired – tired of attaining one level of education only to yearn for the next. Before I earned them, I wanted them desperately. But as soon as I had that piece of paper in hand, their value diminished: after all, I didn’t earn them from a top-ranked college. I didn’t become the confident person I thought I would become because I had them. When I committed my life to Christ, He showed me that His plan for me has never been a worldly one – the degrees were part of MY plan. But pride did provide me with a use for those worldly achievements: to try to convince people I’m “cleverer…than others!”

 My go-to pride behavior is spewing my “wisdom” for whoever is within earshot. I say whatever pops into my head to show how much I know, to indicate the things I have or my position in life, to insure someone understands I am not wrong or “less smart” than they are. When I see a chance around people I’m comfortable with to expound on whatever topic has come up, my “wisdom” comes gushing out. I say things without considering the effect my words have on others. It’s embarrassing to put that on paper and my pride tells me I don’t have to talk about it; better to keep this to myself so others won’t look down on me or know my secret – as if they’re not already aware of it! I discussed thoughts on pride in another blog, but this aspect of it was one of those things in my life that I hadn’t yet identified as disobedience.

 I can’t tell you how many times I’ve embarrassed myself as I allowed pride to determine my behavior. But that’s not the worse consequence – I’ve hurt people I love. I’ve struck at people at their most vulnerable spots, wanting them to feel small on purpose. Lewis is absolutely right when he says “Pride leads to every other vice…” God has made it clear how pride is bringing sin into my life and I know I must hand it over to Him now.

2 Corinthians 12:9 – And He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.”   

 I’ve deleted these last two paragraphs numerous times thinking there’s another way I can talk about this without divulging my weakness. But I’ll press on – as I become more obedient, it is a clear testimony of the Holy Spirit’s work in me – I can’t do this on my own!

 I used to ease my conscience about my pride by telling myself I’m just insecure. But isn’t a big part of insecurity just constantly reminding myself of the areas in my life where I feel I don’t measure up? Labeling pride insecurity garnered sympathy and self-pity. I didn’t have to admit my behaviors were due to pride; I was simply compensating – behaving in a way that eased my suffering – never mind I caused others to suffer! My goal wasn’t to simply overcome insecurity; my goal was to be at the top, nothing less satisfied the true source of my problem.

 The more mature we are in our Christian life, the more we abhor sin. There was a time in my life when I didn’t give a second thought to these things. If I said something hurtful to someone I told myself I was only trying to help them. Chasing after college degrees was only my ambition and a desire to be successful. Now when I allow my pride to determine my behaviors, I am deeply troubled. There were two situations in the past month where I didn’t even try to stop myself from speaking even though I knew exactly what was going on before I opened my mouth. After hours of embarrassment and contemplating painful apologies, I am thankful that God allowed me to see my sin so clearly. I’m thankful He gave me the heart and courage to apologize.

Romans 7:15 – “For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.”

I’m not naïve enough to think I won’t continue to give in to my pride. But I am being very intentional about how I respond when I feel the swell of pride come over me. I have been in a number of situations already where I felt it full-force and wanted so badly to say something that would puff myself up. But I refrained and the feeling from obeying God instead of responding to my emotions brings so much peace. And it has helped me advance my relationship with one particular person so that I am better able to show God’s love.

 There are so many behaviors that we don’t often attribute to pride: an unwillingness to admit when we’re wrong; refusal to apologize; self-pity; arrogance; refusal to acknowledge how your behaviors hurt others; insisting that everything be done your way; refusal to listen to someone else’s ideas; the need to control situations and the people around you; focusing on others’ faults; reluctance or refusal to accept or even listen to constructive criticism; defensiveness; anger; responding by giving others the silent treatment. Do you feel the need to say whatever’s on your mind, giving no thought to the consequences of your words or tone of voice? Look at your behaviors and determine whether or not pride is at the root of it and begin praying for the strength to conquer it. You will need the Holy Spirit – there’s no hope of conquering this one without Him!

 While pride damages our relationships with other people, the greatest harm is that it keeps us from God. Lewis reminds us that pride IS enmity (hostility) to God by man. Are you too proud to submit to His authority? Too proud to understand His plans are better than yours? Too proud to admit He operates in ways that we are unable to understand? Too proud to accept that God can save even the worst sinner you can imagine? Too proud to admit you are as bad as the worst sinner you can imagine? Are you too proud to forgive everyone who has ever hurt you or your family? Are you too proud to submit to Christian leaders God has placed in your life? Are you too proud to reject Christian leaders who don’t adhere to Christian doctrine? Are you too proud to admit that something in your life is not in keeping with God’s Truth? Pride demands that we be number one, the “main event”, even putting ourselves above God and His commands.

 C.S. Lewis points out that pride changed Lucifer from an angel to Satan.  He says it is “the complete anti-God state of mind.”

Job 20:6-7 – “Though the pride of the godless person reaches to the heavens and his head touches the clouds, he will perish forever…”

 

 

Pride IS an emotion

28 Saturday Sep 2013

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I learned in a college Social Work class that many people are unable to properly identify their emotions.  Most generally categorize feelings as sad, happy or mad.  Becoming familiar with the other emotions we experience such as frustration, confusion, and concern helps us see the varying degrees of feelings we experience.  Because many emotions are very similar to others, our behavior often doesn’t accurately communicate what we are actually feeling.  For example, when we’re scared we might react in anger:  My young child hides under the clothes rack at the mall and doesn’t come out when I call to him.  After several minutes, he crawls out and I scold him.  My behavior indicates that I am angry with him but I want him to know I was also scared and worried that someone might have taken him.  Or I might have been frustrated because he does this all the time and I have repeatedly instructed him not to do it.

Ephesians 4:26: “In your anger do not sin”: Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry,”

Emotions are confusing both to the person feeling them and to those we interact with.  We can’t always trust that we’ve interpreted our feelings correctly, but it’s important to know which one we’re experiencing and to understand how we behave in response to each of them.  God reminds us that we are to be in control of our feelings so we avoid the sin that can easily happen during times of heightened emotion.  But it’s difficult to control them unless we know what we are actually dealing with.  I can’t manage my frustration over a procedure at work if I attribute my actual behavior to being angry with a co-worker.

There’s one emotion that we rarely identify correctly or acknowledge:  pride.  One reason it can be tricky is because most of us don’t tend to think of it as an emotion.  I had to look it up to make sure it’s actually considered an emotion, as opposed to a mindset or an attitude.  Psychologists have determined there are two kinds of pride, one negative and one positive.  I would argue that since pride is an emotion, we will experience it in varying degrees, like anger.  Thus, its intensity and how we let it affect our behavior determines whether it is good or bad.  So, like other emotions, we must manage it just as we manage other feelings that can create problems if left unchecked.  If anger isn’t managed, we often end up hurting ourselves and others.  Pride is the same way:  I can have pride in an accomplishment, a belief, my appearance or a lifestyle I have chosen, but when that pride escalates I will make decisions or say things that hurt me and others.

Psalm 10:4:  “In his pride the wicked man does not seek him; in all his thoughts there is no room for God.”

At some point, I realized that pride was the main reason I didn’t commit my life to Christ.  I loved Jesus but I didn’t want “those Christians” to think I was admitting I was wrong.  One of the decisions I made because of this excessive pride was the decision not to attend church.  I didn’t want people to discover how I was living because I didn’t want to change – I didn’t want to admit my lifestyle was wrong and that their lifestyle would be better for me and my family.  I didn’t want to sit and listen to a preacher say things I disagreed with.  Another prideful thought I had that’s surprising is that I didn’t want anyone else to think they knew God better than I did!  Even after my commitment to Jesus, I struggled to attend church because I didn’t want anyone telling tell me I was wrong about something I had learned.  Once I was able to tie these thoughts to pride, I understood the root of my problem and could deal with it.  I literally told myself (I think I actually said it out loud) to accept the fact that there are people out there who know more than I know, who have a closer relationship with God than I do and that it’s time I started learning from them instead of resenting them for it.  I saw how God wanted to use them to help me and I wanted to obey His desire for me to be an active part of His church.

1 John 2:16:  “For everything in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—comes not from the Father but from the world.”

Pride is such a subtle feeling – it doesn’t overwhelm us like anger or sadness yet it can swallow our entire lives because of our unawareness of it. Pride prevents us from doing things we should do and motivates us to do things we wouldn’t do if we would properly identify it.  It just kind of sits back there, conjuring up wrong thinking and providing us with excuses for our bad behavior, disguising itself as a legitimate weapon against others’ perceived efforts to belittle us. We tend to think of it as mostly a positive emotion, so we’re not monitoring it like we do obviously negative emotions. It’s difficult to know when we cross the line with pride.  Since identifying it and working on it in one area of my life, it’s getting easier to see when it’s wreaking havoc in other areas of my life.

Proverbs 11:2: “When pride comes, then comes disgrace, but with humility comes wisdom.”

I hold a Master’s Degree in Human Resources.  I am proud of earning my degree and for some things I accomplished in the organizations I worked for. But the fact is I worked in the field less than 10 years. As I write this I can feel pride welling up and I really want to give you a bunch of details so you don’t think I’m a failure. I want to tell you about things that happened that were beyond my control so you go away with a positive impression of me. But if I’m keeping my feelings of pride at an acceptable level, I have to tell you about the poor choices I made and the fact that I haven’t followed God’s plan for my life. When I’m in a situation at work where I’m feeling insecure about my abilities or intelligence, I will try to find a way to let others know about my education.  I don’t share this information so they can know a little about me; I share this information because I know it’s something I’ve accomplished that they haven’t, hoping they conclude I might be a little smarter than they are, even when I know that’s not true! I work with some really smart people who have five times more experience than I have, and while I struggle with numerous aspects of our job, most of my co-workers are really good at it.  My pride has led me to make some comments I wish I hadn’t made.  I’ve been caught in lies trying to make sure others don’t view me as inferior to them.  While trying to appear more intelligent by saying things I think MIGHT be true, I just look silly because others know I’m wrong.

Philippians 2:3: “Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves”

I have made a lot of progress in this area, but still have some work to do!  I understand that I can’t use the fact that I have a degree to make myself feel superior to others.  I can’t use it to communicate something about myself that isn’t true.  I have that degree only because God worked in my life to enable me to get it. I must look at my accomplishments as resources He has given me to help others.

James 4:6: “But He gives us more grace.  That is why Scripture says:  “God opposes the proud but shows favor to the humble.””

In areas where I have conquered pride, I find living humbly is a very stress-free, relaxing way to live.  When I allow pride to puff me up, my life quickly becomes a muddled mess! Dealing with pride can be exhausting as I try to keep track of the lies I have told or come to terms with the pain I have caused.  When pride controls me, every situation brings the possibility that I might not come off looking as good as I want to look.  I am learning to find my value in Christ, not what other people think of me or where I think I stand in the world. I am who God made me to be and I have to realize that it often isn’t going to look like what the world says it should look like.  No matter what I’ve accomplished, what I look like, how smart I am, what I have, or what I can do, the world will never be satisfied with it and I will never be fulfilled by any of it. As I think about people I have known, it is the humble ones that I feel great affinity for.  One of Jesus’ most enduring qualities is His humility and His greatest moments were when it was in full display!  Don’t let anyone tell you that being humble is a bad thing.  Moses’ humility was noteworthy enough that God appointed a scribe to add it to His Word and look at all he accomplished!

Numbers 12:3: “(Now Moses was a very humble man, more humble than anyone else on the face of the earth.)

 I want to live humbly.  To do that, I must remember at all times what God has done for me and where I would be without His gift of salvation through Jesus Christ.

Romans 12:3 “For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned.”