Humility vs. Pride
Soooooooo this is a spur of the moment blog post. A thought process that got reaaaal deep and I ended up thinking “you know what? I should write this down.” & here we are. My husband and I have been studying and pondering individually and together pride & humility. We recently read about how pride and humility can not coexist. When we saw it we were like “oh yeah that makes sense. We BASICALLY knew that!” But we didn’t. Because as we dove in, it’s reaped so many eye openers to us. It came when we realized how detrimental pride is to our connection with God. I mean we knew that. But we didn’t realize how sneaky pride is. It’s a huge tool of Satan’s against the children of God. So here I am to tell you of the thoughts I’ve had as my husband and I have pondered pride and humility.
Humility is extremely complicated. I truly don’t think most people fully understand what humility is. We get complacent with certain principles (example: faith) & think we know what they are. But we really have so much to learn about these “simple” principles & how they’re not so simple after all. Humility in the true to the faith booklet is: to be humble is to recognize gratefully your dependence on the Lord—to understand that you have constant need for His support. I think we get modesty and humility mixed up. Modesty can be referred to anyone. While humility is strictly admitting we’re powerless without God. & how wonderful it is to have Him as our provider of all. Humility is such an interesting subject to dive into. But I think the biggest benefit of studying and pondering it is I slowly see my prospective change. That God needs to be at the head of my life.
Now for PRIDE. Scaaaaary! But kind of. As we pondered it I struggled feeling “Well I can’t really pinpoint a huge issue I have when it comes to pride.” I knew it was there, I just felt it was going to take some soul searching for me to see it in myself. It’s hard to admit flaws in yourself so it took some time & spiritual guidance. Then it hit me. Garrett and I were having a spiritual discussion with my parents about pride and humility. And I suddenly realized how DARN SNEAKY that pride was! My biggest expression of pride is my anxiety/stressing out/constant worrying. I AM A WORRY WORT. At least once a week I wake Garrett up from a dead sleep to pour my heart out to him about all my worries. Things that have no evidence they’re happening like “Garrett, I just don’t want you to leave me! I can’t live this life without you!” To things that are understandable worries that I just take to an extreme level like “WE ARE BROKE! WE WILL NEVER BE FINANCIALLY INDEPENDENT!”
Now I’m not saying if you worry then you’re prideful. Not at all. I’m saying how I worry is a form of pride. I think the whole world is on my shoulders & I MUST FIGURE OUT HOW TO FIX IT. I say to myself all the time “if I don’t do it, no one will”. Weeeeeell now you probably see why my type of worrying is prideful. Ummmmmmm. Hello?! Where’s God in my equation?! I realized in times of worry I figure I’m on my own because if I rely on someone they’ll only hurt, leave, or drop the ball on you. I’m prideful even in friendships. I figure “I’ve been burned enough, might as well keep my distance because I can handle myself!” And I distance myself from people.
How often do you find yourself encircled in ME/I thoughts? If you start to pay attention to your worrying, you may just find your pride. What I discovered changed me in that instance. Am I exercising my faith in God if I’m constantly assuming I will be the one putting out the fires in my life? No I’m showing him what I really think. And that’s that I didn’t have a strong testimony that God would always take care of me if I were being righteous. But did I get down with that thought? HECK NO. I suddenly became excited to gain my testimony that with God on my side ALL THINGS ARE POSSIBLE. He can do ANYTHING. I do NOT have to do everything! I do what I can & let Him handle the rest while I patiently wait for further instruction!
So I want to challenge you to try this out! Look for the ways you show pride. But don’t sit and wallow about how prideful you are. Get ready to gain that testimony! Light that fire in your heart! To feast upon the words of Christ! Because that will happen! God gets so excited and happy when we start to improve ourselves. It’s a tough love challenge if you accept but it will be SO WORTH IT. It’ll be worth trying to be a little better every day.
Humility is extremely complicated. I truly don’t think most people fully understand what humility is. We get complacent with certain principles (example: faith) & think we know what they are. But we really have so much to learn about these “simple” principles & how they’re not so simple after all. Humility in the true to the faith booklet is: to be humble is to recognize gratefully your dependence on the Lord—to understand that you have constant need for His support. I think we get modesty and humility mixed up. Modesty can be referred to anyone. While humility is strictly admitting we’re powerless without God. & how wonderful it is to have Him as our provider of all. Humility is such an interesting subject to dive into. But I think the biggest benefit of studying and pondering it is I slowly see my prospective change. That God needs to be at the head of my life.
Now for PRIDE. Scaaaaary! But kind of. As we pondered it I struggled feeling “Well I can’t really pinpoint a huge issue I have when it comes to pride.” I knew it was there, I just felt it was going to take some soul searching for me to see it in myself. It’s hard to admit flaws in yourself so it took some time & spiritual guidance. Then it hit me. Garrett and I were having a spiritual discussion with my parents about pride and humility. And I suddenly realized how DARN SNEAKY that pride was! My biggest expression of pride is my anxiety/stressing out/constant worrying. I AM A WORRY WORT. At least once a week I wake Garrett up from a dead sleep to pour my heart out to him about all my worries. Things that have no evidence they’re happening like “Garrett, I just don’t want you to leave me! I can’t live this life without you!” To things that are understandable worries that I just take to an extreme level like “WE ARE BROKE! WE WILL NEVER BE FINANCIALLY INDEPENDENT!”
Now I’m not saying if you worry then you’re prideful. Not at all. I’m saying how I worry is a form of pride. I think the whole world is on my shoulders & I MUST FIGURE OUT HOW TO FIX IT. I say to myself all the time “if I don’t do it, no one will”. Weeeeeell now you probably see why my type of worrying is prideful. Ummmmmmm. Hello?! Where’s God in my equation?! I realized in times of worry I figure I’m on my own because if I rely on someone they’ll only hurt, leave, or drop the ball on you. I’m prideful even in friendships. I figure “I’ve been burned enough, might as well keep my distance because I can handle myself!” And I distance myself from people.
How often do you find yourself encircled in ME/I thoughts? If you start to pay attention to your worrying, you may just find your pride. What I discovered changed me in that instance. Am I exercising my faith in God if I’m constantly assuming I will be the one putting out the fires in my life? No I’m showing him what I really think. And that’s that I didn’t have a strong testimony that God would always take care of me if I were being righteous. But did I get down with that thought? HECK NO. I suddenly became excited to gain my testimony that with God on my side ALL THINGS ARE POSSIBLE. He can do ANYTHING. I do NOT have to do everything! I do what I can & let Him handle the rest while I patiently wait for further instruction!
So I want to challenge you to try this out! Look for the ways you show pride. But don’t sit and wallow about how prideful you are. Get ready to gain that testimony! Light that fire in your heart! To feast upon the words of Christ! Because that will happen! God gets so excited and happy when we start to improve ourselves. It’s a tough love challenge if you accept but it will be SO WORTH IT. It’ll be worth trying to be a little better every day.
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