Part of the Pride of Life is our desire to be noticed and recognised. It’s a common desire to be a hero or to receive commendation for what we have done or who we are.
However, the Pride of Life is part of the world’s evil and God resists the proud. So dying to our self interest and our need to be recognised and appreciated is a significant issue in our Christian life.
God gives grace to the humble.
One Sunday a lady at the church where I was preaching told of her attempts to encourage her adult son to attend church with her. She extolled me to her son as a …., and before she finished the sentence I wondered what she might commend me for, such as my preaching, but she said I was a very humble man.
It intrigued me that such was her first big credit point for me. Maybe she is accustomed to preachers who give off the signal that they are proud. It struck me as interesting.
There are two keys to helping me deal with pride in my life. One is to realise that my very best efforts are pretty pathetic, especially when seen from God’s perspective. I rely on God being my rescuer and giving me the sense of being capable, but only because His ability is at work in the background.
Another has been dealing with feelings of rejection and shame. Those feelings are the flip-side to pride. If we are successful we feel impressed with ourselves. If we are unsuccessful we feel ashamed. It’s still pride.
As God freed me from my rejection and shame issues He was also dealing with my pride. In my failures I don’t need to be ashamed, because God knew I was going to fail before I started and He chose to love me and to stand with me, not because of what good I have to offer, but despite the foolishness, ineptitude, clumsiness, selfishness and other human complications I mess my life up with.
Everything I have to give came from God, so I can’t take credit. And everything I get wrong just reminds me that I totally need God and that God loves me regardless of my stupidity.
Maybe it has been working those things through to some degree that has brought me a measure of freedom from pride issues.
When I know I can’t do anything successfully myself, but I rely on God to make things work for me despite how I complicate them, and when I know that God loves me and is working with me despite every weakness and failing within me, then I can happily acknowledge that All Glory Goes to God!
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