The Death of Pride

Pride is a sneaky and cunning monster. Just when you think you’ve beaten it, it comes creeping back in another form.  I hate it. I hate what it does to you, and to others. I hate how it brings it’s accomplices Jealousy and Contempt with it.  Mostly, I hate how I can justify it. This monster camouflages itself to look like victimization and insecurity, but really, it’s pride. It’s not being satisfied with where you’re at. It’s discontentment. It’s making an idol of being the best. It’s comparison. It’s evil. It’s sin.

The desire for growth, to always be bettering yourself--that’s a great thing. To be angry at slow progress and jealous of others--that’s a terrible thing.  It will consume you.

I can have a lot of grace for other people. I just don’t have much for myself, and that’s pride. All around me are walls of pride, and just when I think I’ve beaten them all down, I turn around to realize another wall has been put up. Honestly, I’m exhausted. It is so much easier to throw in the towel and let the walls keep building, but that leaves you in a lonely fortress with no way out.

If I can be honest, sometimes, sanctification just sucks. It hurts, and it’s hard, and you just want someone to agree with you and let you be the victim. But you’re not. You’re the offender. The adulterer. The murderer. And so am I. But we’ve been given an armor and all the provision we need, and even after that the Lord fights for us if we would just be still.

We're fighting our flesh, and we're fighting the enemy, and both want our destruction, but they’re pretty convincing seductresses; I don’t know about you, but I’m all too ready to believe them.

All this rambling, and really my point is this: pride is a liar. Perfectionism tends to be praised in our culture, but when you whittle it down, you find at its core the belief that you don’t need Jesus. In all it’s forms, pride is idolatry of self. Pride is believing you know better than God. And none of us are immune.

But God, being loving, strips us of that. I’m thankful he does, although I hate the process.  As much as I wish for a one and done solution, I know fighting sin is an active and daily battle.  The first shot fired is confession, so find others to confess and walk with. Pride will destroy you. Love will restore you. And he who began a good work in you will be faithful to complete it.

So even when I feel defeated in my sin, I cling to that promise. That I am not the one who fixes myself or makes myself more holy, but the Lord does. And I’d much rather leave that in his strong hands than my weak ones.