Pride and Humility

 Pride and Humility

October 23, 2024

Another topic that came up in the retreat was pride.This is a difficult subject to talk about, especially in America where we encourage all types of prideful behavior in our children: Self-actualization, Self-esteem, self-respect, self-identification. Now this is not all bad, but there are additional selfish and prideful attitudes that underly the addictive behaviors that plague our country: Self-gratification (sex, over eating), self-medication (drugs, alcohol), self-promotion (athletics, politics, entertainment ), selfish desire to get rich (gambling ). Then of course America has the whole month of June dedicated to Pride in breaking as many of God’s commandments as possible in one month!

It’s also hard to talk about because talking about it brings up the realization that there is pride in our (my) soul, and we don’t want to acknowledge that, because we have pride in our soul… Oh my! It’s also hard to talk about humility, because they say that you can’t claim to be humble, because as soon as you do, then you are prideful, and not humble!

So then, what is pride and why is it so harmful? From the list of prideful attitudes above, you will notice that they all start with “self”. Pride is basically putting yourself first before God or any other person. That was Lucifers problem. “I will exalt myself above the most high…” By seeking to raise himself up, he was cast down and cast our of God’s presence. Therefore, we can say that pride separates us from God, and this produces a rottenness in our soul. John 15 talks about the vine and illustrates how the branch dies and rots if it is cut off from the vine. This is exactly what happens when we are proud and exalt ourselves above the Father.

So if pride is an overly exalted opinion of ourself, what then is humility? Is putting yourself down, being a door mat and kowtowing to evil authorities humility? No. True humility is having the opinion of yourself that God the Father has of you. When you see yourself as loved, honored and cared for by the Father, then you are truly humble. Humility is akin to meekness. That is commonly misinterpreted as weakness, but in truth, meekness is the strength of a horse that has been broken and trained. Once a strong horse has been broken to ride and trained to obey the riders wishes, it is a powerful tool that can herd cattle or run a race. Such meekness is strength under control. Humility is like that in that it is a sense of self worth that is true, and not exaggerated or minimized. 

How do you get rid of pride? I don’t think there is any easy answer there. It is a process of submitting to the Lord Jesus and listening to the Father’s voice though the Holy Spirit. When you walk in submission over time, pride diminishes and humility increases. Like all the fruit of the Spirit, it takes time to grow. You don’t plan an apple seed and expect to harvest apples the next day.  It takes a season, and sometimes two or three, for the tree to grow and begin to bear fruit. So my admonition, is start from wherever you are. Renounce pride and begin to follow the Lord with all you heart, and let Him work on your character until you look more like Jesus and less like the world.