About Pride

I like books and now I’m reading one that is called « Steering through chaos » by Os Guinness. I think it’s neat that I get to borrow books from friends at Bible College. Anyways, I just started to read it and it’s very interesting so far. Right now I’m reading a lot about pride and it challenges me deeply. I want to read it all as quick as possible because it’s good, but I need to take the time to digest all the information and challenges I see. I have been especially impressed with some quotes from C.S. Lewis. Here’s something that I believe should be read closely and used to examine ourselves.

“In God you come up against something which is in every respect immeasurably superior to yourself. Unless you know God as that – and, therefore, know yourself as nothing in comparison – you do not know God at all. As long as you are proud you cannot know God. A proud man is always looking down on things and people: and of course, as long as you are looking down, you cannot see something that is above you. That raises a terrible question. How is it that people who are quite obviously eaten up with pride can say they believe in God and appear to themselves very religious? I am afraid it means they are worshipping an imaginary God. The theoretically admit themselves to be nothing in the presence of his phantom God, but are really all the time imagining how he approves of them and thinks them far better than ordinary people: that is, they pay a pennyworth of imaginary humility to Him and get out of it a pound’s worth of pride towards their fellow-men.”

“Pride can often be used to beat down the simpler vices. Teachers, in fact, often appeal to a boy’s pride, or, as they call it, his self-respect, to make him behave decently: many a man has overcome cowardice, or lust, or ill-temper by learning to think that they are beneath his dignity – that is pride. The devil laughs. He is perfectly content to see you becoming chaste and brave and self-controlled provided, all the time, he is setting up in you the dictatorship of pride.”

I think that seeking to obey Christ is very dangerous, very risky. Because we are all, to some extent, proud people. We easily shift from humble obedience to pride in our works. As we strive to obey Jesus and live lives that are pure and godly, it’s a great challenge not to think of ourselves better than the average Christian. We discipline ourselves for the purpose of godliness, but if we find any pride in our pursuit, Satan’s laughing. Because our problem now is deeper than before. As Lewis says, “The real test of being in the presence of God is that you either forget about yourself altogether or see yourself as a small, dirty object. It is better to forget about yourself altogether.”

My thoughts aren’t clear… but I hope I’ll become more humble because I know I am not.