Pride--Faith in Yourself

My afternoon Sabbath reading was on the topic of pride. Pride must be about the most offensive and dangerous of all sins, perhaps because it was the original sin, starting with Lucifer and even leading to Eve's eating of the fruit. She wanted to be like God, knowing good and evil, remember?

Pride is one of the hardest sins to conquer, but is also the one most unrecognized, both by others and even by ourselves. Even the finest Christian struggles with it every day. It leads to self-righteousness, which is nothing more than pride in oneself. A proud person ultimately only has faith in himself and that is why it separates us from God and is so dangerous.

Jesus was the most wonderful example of humility. Our only hope of escaping the pull of pride is to constantly pattern our lives after Him. I have a feeling it will be the work of our lifetime. I know it has been mine.

Proud to Be Humble

“The Story of Ferdinand” has another story; not about Ferdinand, but about the storybook itself. The book, which I checked out awhile back, has been due at the library for a few days, and I have begged my daughter to look for the book at HER house, because I was sure she took it home to read to her girls. Today I had the very humbling experience of discovering the book behind MY couch! Ouch…

My daughter had a humbling experience of her own today too. She was feeling very good about getting “fixed up” to go out on some errands. She didn’t often go to such lengths to make herself presentable, so she actually felt proud to have just the right clothes and makeup on to go out and meet the world.

Just as they were about to go out the door, her three-year-old daughter told her she had “mud on her bottom”! Well, it wasn’t “mud”, but some embarrassing substance she must have sat on somewhere! What a relief she hadn’t made it out the door yet. It just goes to show that none of us are as good as we think we are.

So, why do we lowly human beings find having humility so difficult? I’ve actually found myself feeling proud of myself for being so humble. Maybe it’s because the sin of pride has been around longer than any other sin. After all, pride was behind Lucifer’s downfall in heaven. Our only hope is to keep our eyes on the Lord Jesus Christ…who left the highest position in the universe to reach down to our level (with books behind our couches and “mud” on our bottoms), which, face it, is about the lowest He could come. Talk about humility…