It’s a comfortable sin, one I barely recognize until I’m called on it, until something bumps it and causes it to bristle.
Pride.
The root that says I deserve, I have a right, you ought to treat me well.
I tell my Bible study how I don’t want a Mephibosheth. I had one once–a student who was completely dependent on me. I had great motives when I started discipling her–I saw her need and I wanted to share the love of Christ with her. But she and her family abused my care. They were careless with my time, with my money, with what I was giving. I don’t want another Mephibosheth. I don’t want to be used like that again.
My Bible study leaders ask me what I learned through that experience. I struggle to come up with an answer. All I can think of is the injustice done to me–and when I was trying to be altruistic.
“It’s Pride.” Kathy says.
I realize she’s right. It’s pride that insists on its own rights, insists on being treated well.
Cathy shares her story of discovering her own pride in thinking that a woman she’s sharing with couldn’t teach her anything.
I discover my pride when I read an article from Practical Shepherding on how a newly married man can disciple his wife.
I bristled at the thought of a husband trying to disciple me. Who would he be to teach me anything? Encourage me, sure. Rebuke me, yes. But teach me? I don’t need to be taught.
“That’s pride,” the voice of the Lord said.
And once again, I was forced to grapple with my heart’s dark core.
Pride.
Pride that makes me think I can teach others but need not be taught myself. Pride that makes me think that I have something to offer others but that no one else has anything to offer me.
Pride that makes me think I deserve to be made much of. I deserve to be appreciated. I deserve to be treated fairly, nicely, with mercy.
I find myself arrogantly agreeing with Mr. Darcy that “pride, where there is a real superiority of mind–Pride is always in good measure.”
But it isn’t.
First, because compared to Christ, I have no superiority of which to boast. Second, because even Christ, who was superior in every way, humbled Himself and became obedient.
My heart needs a makeover–but not of the outside. My heart needs a coring, a removal of its center. My pride must be excised before its cancer corrupts my whole being. My pride must be rid, or I will have made myself an enemy I can’t afford to have.
‘God resists the proud,
But gives grace to the humble.’Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Lament and mourn and weep! Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and He will lift you up.
~James 4:6-10
How do you think that humbling works in practical terms? I have pride issues as well, and it’s hard to really grasp what humility looks like. Not false humility (I can do that) but genuine, heartfelt humility.
I think this is true of most of us, which may be why the Lord puts us in those situations where our pride is bruised so often.
C. S. had a couple of quotes about humility in Mere Christianity which were a help to me. One was:
‘Pleasure in being praised is not Pride. The child who is patted on the back for doing a lesson well, the woman whose beauty is praised by her lover, the saved soul to whom Christ says, ‘Well done,’ are all pleased and ought to be. For here the pleasure lies not in what you are but in the fact that you have pleased someone you wanted (and rightly wanted) to please. The trouble begins when you pass from thinking, “I have pleased him; all is well,” to thinking, ‘What a fine person I must be to have done it.'”
The other is: “Do not imagine that if you meet a really humble man he will be what most people call ‘humble’ nowadays: he will not be a sort of greasy smarmy person, who is always telling you that, of course, he is a nobody. Probably all you will think about him is that he seemed a cheerful, intelligent chap who tool a real interest in what you said to him….He will not be thinking about humility: he will not be thinking about himself at all.”
It helped to think of dealing with it not so much by trying to fight off thinking about myself and my ways, desires, etc., but to actively thinking about others.
It helped, too, to make a list of verses and go over them from time to time.
Bummer Mr. Darcy was so handsome…he was SO off base with the pride thing! Sniff, ha! I’ve been realizing lately just how pride is the root of just about EVERY sin. Sigh!