pride & humility

There are two kinds of pride, both good and bad. 'Good pride' represents our dignity and self-respect. 'Bad pride' is the deadly sin of superiority that reeks of conceit and arrogance. ~ John C. Maxwell

Humility is not thinking less of yourself, it's thinking of yourself less. ~ Rick Warren

I can think back through the years of my life and remember certain bad decisions, poor choices made, knowing wrong from right, decisions I made that can’t be undone, life altering decisions, and the common theme is, they all were made out of pride and arrogance, and a refusal to humble myself to God’s word.

I had a greater concern over what the world would think if I chose the harder path, the right path, and made choices that required sacrifice and humility, than my concern for doing the right thing.

The kind of pride I am referring to, is not the pride that is felt when a person is satisfied with their abilities, or a job well done. The kind of pride I am referring to and is referred to throughout scripture is selfish pride.

Selfish pride is an arrogant pride that shuts God out of our lives because we think we have it all under control, that we are better than others, that we control our destiny and successes, and puts ‘self’ on the throne of our hearts .

It’s a thin line from pride to arrogance. We can find plenty of scriptures that speak to how much God hates pride, and how destructive it can be for our souls. Here are just a few. There are many, many more, but suffice it to say, pride is a huge issue for God, and an obstacle for us in our daily walk.

“When pride comes, then comes disgrace, but with the humble is wisdom.” (Proverbs 11:2)
“God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” (James 4:6)
“Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.” (Proverbs 16:18)
Do you see a man who is wise in his own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for him.” (Proverbs 26:12)

Most everyone has heard of, “the seven deadly sins,” and can tell you what they are, pride, greed, lust, envy, gluttony, wrath, and sloth. These seven deadly sins also have corresponding virtues that can overcome the deadly sins. Those virtues are humility, charity, chastity, gratitude, temperance, patience, and diligence. Did you know that while each of the seven is a sin, the Bible doesn’t specifically call them the “seven deadly sins?” The actual list is not contained in scripture.

For a little historical perspective behind this list, a fourth century monk named Evagrius Ponticus, described eight evils to resist. Two hundred years later, Pope Gregory 1 refined that list to seven.

Almost every sin can be placed into one of the seven categories, but we see throughout scripture that pride and selfishness are related to each of the seven and are seen as the root causes of all sin.

So, before moving on, let’s take a look at the definition of sin. From Christianity.com we see sin is defined as…

"an offense against the religious or moral law" and a "transgression of the law of God." The biblical terminology of sin suggests that sin has three aspects: disobedience to or breach of the law, violation of relationships with people, and rebellion against God, which is the most basic concept.
Sin can also be understood as "missing the mark" or turning away from God. Hence an understanding of repentance is to "reorient" yourself back towards God and follow His commandments.

I have always struggled with the thin line between being proud but not arrogant, being proud yet being humble, and being humble, but not perceived as weak. When I say this, I don’t really mean that I struggle with not being arrogant, or not being humble, although we all do from time to time.

To me, it just seems really hard to know the line between taking pride in yourself and not coming across as arrogant and being proud in a humble manner without coming across as prideful.

I especially found this challenging as a parent: trying to teach my sons to be confident, but not prideful. To take pride in themselves, but not be arrogant. Be proud but be humble. What I have come to know, is exactly what I said above, there is a very thin line between pride and arrogance, and humility is the antidote, but choosing humility can be difficult. It takes intentionality to be proud, but not arrogant, and being humble is part of the intentionality process.

Trying to be humble in a world that sees humility as a weakness is definitely an internal battle. It is incredibly difficult to choose humility when the world is all about “meedom,” which I wrote about in last week’s blog, Let Freedom Ring. This world, through movies, music, the news, in practically everything we consume as viewers and listeners says humility is weakness, but strength is found in self-adoration, self-promotion, and taking care of número uno. You do you!

I read something on pride once from Rick Warren where he suggested that every conflict we go through in a relationship has an element of pride mixed with it. He reminds us that the middle letter of the word, “pride” is I, and the middle letter of the word “Crime” is I, and the same for the word “sin.”

“I” is at the center of all kinds of problems.

The Bible says, “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves.” (Philippians 2:3).

The author of this scripture., Paul, is pointing out two types of pride that create conflict. The first is selfish ambition, or “it’s all about me.” The other, vain conceit, which says, “I’m always right.” The first, selfish ambition causes all sorts of problems in our homes, schools, workplace, church, and government. Vain conceit says, I am always right, my way or the highway, and is more concerned with control and making a good impression.

Here is a thirty-thousand-foot view of the ways in which pride, albeit selfish ambition, or vain conceit can hinder and possibly shutdown our ability to grow and be the best we can be, but more importantly, can keep us from all that God has and wants for us.

Pride

1.     Precludes us from hearing God speak to our hearts. If we think we don’t need Him and we can handle everything on our own we miss the possibilities that He wants to offer us.
2.    Breeds self-indulgence when we believe life is “all about me.” It often manifests itself in sexual immorality, drugs, alcoholism, and all sorts of abuses that harm us or others., after all, I deserve it. I want it.
3.    Prevents us from allowing others to speak truth into our lives, truth that might actually prevent us from making mistakes. It prevents us from allowing others to speak a truth that might require us to humble ourselves in order to change a certain behavior or pattern that isn’t how we are called to behave or live.
4.    Stops us from examining our own hearts and speaking truth into our own situations and our own lives because we are too vain to admit we need to change, or that our behavior is actually enabling another’s bad/harmful behavior(s). We can’t see that we have a hero/rescuer complex, and we believe we have the ability to be another’s “savior.”
5.    Lies to us. Nobody has it all together, but our pride can fool us into thinking more highly of ourselves. Everything on this planet is broken because of sin. We spend our days trying to impress people by pretending we’ve got it all together. Look at our social media pages. We must humbly assess our lives, which just might include admitting we’re a mess. It’s important to see ourselves accurately because we can only manage what we measure. If we don’t know our areas of weakness, we can never grow them.
6.    Leads to quarrelling, dissension, division, envy, self-ambition, and all sorts or relational discord.

The perfect antidote to pride is humility.

“…God opposes the proud but shows favor to the humble.” (James 4:6)

Humble people are generally happier people because they never stop growing. Much of that has to do with the fact that humble people are not afraid to vulnerable, which society sees as a weakness, but in fact, takes tremendous strength.

Here are some ways God can take our vulnerability and turn it into empowerment. Our choice to be humble opens up our hearts to receive all that God has for us because it opens our hearts to receive His grace.

Humility empowers us…

1.     Spiritually. As we share our weaknesses and vulnerabilities with others it opens our hearts to receive God’s grace, and grace is what we need to change or break addictions and bad habits.
2.    Emotionally. As we confess our sins and share our weaknesses and struggles with trusted friends and family it can help heal our wounds. If you need forgiveness, go to God as He is the only one who can forgive our sins, but through being open and vulnerable with others, we can find healing.
3.    Relationally. When we are vulnerable, we become more attractive to others, and people feel we are more relatable to, whereas pride pushes people away, humility will draw people to us.
4.    To lead others. The best leaders are not too proud to be vulnerable, to let others know they aren’t perfect, and that failure is part of their life as well. A good leader doesn’t need all the glory. They can be vulnerable enough to absorb the failure of their team with out the need to call out individuals who might have messed up, and they are confident enough to let their team take the credit for a success without having to be in the spotlight.

Too many times in my own life I have missed opportunities because of pride. We think we aren’t prideful, but reality is, pride is something that likely gets in our way more often than we realize because we justify and rationalize our prideful behavior in so many creative ways. Pride will keep us from reaching our dreams and goals.

The Bible says pride leads to destruction. It also says that God gives grace to the humble. Why? Because the humble are teachable. You’re never going to have a fresh start if you act like you’ve already arrived. You need other people to speak truth, point out your blind spots, encourage you, and help you remember God’s promises.

When you practice humility, you start seeing people as God created them: in his image, with great worth.

Something to consider: How does pride keep you from surrendering a certain part of your life to God? If so, will you evaluate what you need to do to give your pride over to God today? Name your relationships that are stagnate or damaged due to pride. Name your relationships that are thriving due to transparency and vulnerability. Which do you prefer and why? Has pride ruined some of your relationships, a career, or other areas of your life? What can you do today to help restore those situations, or learn from them?

Resources paraphrased & or referenced:

Rick Warren

Rick Warren-Manage-what-you-measure

Rick Warren-Four-strengths-in-vulnerability

Christianity.com-seven-deadly-sins

Inspiringtips.com-Control Pride-Overcome Arrogance