Do you find it difficult to celebrate other people’s success? Is it hard for you to apologize when you know you are wrong? Are you unable to admit it when you need help? Have you ever cheated rather than lose? Do you need to have the last word in every conflict?
All of these are symptoms of the kind of pride that hurts us and those we love. The problem is that we sometimes feel helpless to overcome it. We may think about apologizing, asking for help, or letting someone else have the spotlight for a while, but it seldom gets past the thinking stage. On the threshold of humbling ourselves, pride rises up to convince us that no apology is needed, and admitting fault would make us look weak.
This is a problem because, “Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall” (Proverbs 16:18). If pride is controlling you, it is likely because you think it makes you strong. The truth is quite the opposite. In fact, pride weakens us in three ways. It keeps us from saying what needs to be said, hearing what needs to be heard, and recognizing the place of God in our lives. Be honest, can you see yourself in any of the following situations?
Is pride making you weak by keeping you from saying what needs to be said? A vitally important relationship is withering because someone needs to hear a compliment or word of affirmation from you – a spouse, your child, a co-worker – but you can’t quite do it. Or maybe you need to admit to a problem or an addiction, but pride is keeping you from asking for the assistance you need.
Is pride weakening you by keeping you from hearing what you need to hear? Someone begins to correct you, but you shut them down as soon as they start talking. After a while, nobody dares correct you because they’ve learned from past experience that you can’t take advice without having a meltdown. Your reaction may be aggressive (anger) or more passive (crying). Either way, you are sending the signal that the help you need isn’t wanted.
Is pride weakening you by shutting God out of your life? The blessing that could be yours is missed when you refuse to acknowledge your creator and his will for your life. No matter how great we think we are, our best life is not found independent of God. Our destiny can only be fulfilled through humble surrender to the purposes of the one who made us.
Pride is a prison that shuts us in and shuts others out. It deceives us by making us feel powered up when in reality we are only puffed up. It deceives us, weakens us, and sets us up for a fall. If we want to be free of its grip, we first have to identify exactly what pride is.
At its core, pride is competitive. It sees other people as rivals that we must vanquish in our quest to be top dog. This is why we aren’t satisfied with having nice things; no, our things must be nicer than our peers. Being pretty isn’t enough; we have to be prettier than someone else, or richer, or stronger, or smarter. The competition never ends. It’s the comparison we are after and when we win we feel superior, and when we lose we feel defeated, but either way we never feel at peace.
Jesus offers us another way. His example has the power to completely reframe our perspective. Here is how the New Testament appeals to his example as a way out of the prison of pride:
“Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others. In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death – even death on a cross!” (Philippians 2:3-8).
We begin each week at Lost River by remembering what Jesus has done for us by partaking of the Lord’s Supper as a church family. There isn’t a more effective way to conquer the destructive power of pride than by remembering the humble self-sacrifice of our Lord and Savior. If pride has a grip on your life, we invite you to come and see if Jesus has the power to set you free.
-by Lawrence Kelley, Minister
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