Pride

Hey y'all.

I read an article on "pride as sin" today and now find that the subject is wedged into my brain as a song I simply must write. Pride was Satan's undoing. Dangerous thing is pride and we are all guilty of it. Yesterday I was so proud of myself for writing a personal song (that's something I don't often do) and then getting glowing feedback on it from a pro-writer. Then today, I stumble upon this article about pride and realise I just tripped over a massive hint. Thanks Lord.  

Anyway, I was just wondering if any of you have a particular opinion on the subject or an experience to share that would help me get my head around the idea.

Thanks    

There's a difference in taking pride in an accomplishment and being puffed up because of the accomplishment.  I am proud of my Joshua's Creed album.  A lot of work went into it.  I am proud of the work Dillon did on the vocals and melodies.  I am proud of the work Tanner put into programming the drums.  I'm proud of the album created by my wife, Tori.

I'm not puffed up or arrogant about it.  I don't feel or act like I've "arrived".  I couldn't have done it without the help of others and certainly not without the gifts God gave me.

Look at the parable of the talents.  The master gave each of his three servants an amount of money to work with while he was gone.  Two of them doubled their allotment while the third hid his in the ground.  When the master returned, the two said, "Look!  I've taken what you've given me and doubled it!"  Pride in their work.  They didn't think, because of their accomplishment, that they were equal to or above their master.

Satan was so proud of his appointed position that he thought he should be running the whole show.

Ahh, but what I didn't say was that there was a quiet thought that sneaked into my mind that I was somehow better. THAT was the pride that stuck like a barb. I didn't crow about the achievement. But the thought was there. You've hit the nail on the head, Derek...that pride could lead to arrogance...

...it did (even if it was fleeting and knocked down forthwith)   ; )

Noted. Thanks

You're welcome!

Balance in everything.  Pride out of balance leads to arrogance on one extreme and false humility on the other.

This is a delicate area.

I've had people attack me as prideful, and then proceed to take me down a peg or ten. Past the point of humility, to humiliation. To rub my face in shame, so that I feel unworthy to call myself a child of God despite the grace He's given us. During those times, I developed a lot of empathy for those struggling with suicidal thoughts. 

The thing is, I've always considered myself a humble person, with a well-adjusted and balanced sense of my own strengths AND weaknesses.

When dealing with these people, I've had to learn that they are likely dealing with their own insecurities and hurts by lashing out at me, and to try to push through my own anger in the situation to pray for them.

Nobody, myself included, likes to admit they are wrong. There's embarrassment, and yes possibly, sometimes, hurt pride. As Christians, we do need to learn to do this with humility. We also need to learn how to point out the flaws in others with love instead of anger to avoid making the situation worse, and damaging people and relationships in the process.

We don't need inflated egos. But we do need to maintain a positive view of oneself to be emotionally healthy. It's unfortunate that our English word "pride" is used for both things.

Good stuff in this thread.  My two cents:

The right balance of pride/humility lies in our understanding of a) who God is and b) who we are relative to God.  And then continuously and repeatedly being reminded of this because we humans are conveniently forgetful when it comes to remaining humble.  (Reading Scripture and praying are good methods, but also receiving sound biblical teaching that isn't just a "sermon" focused on being inspirational or encouraging and cherry-picking Bible verses to support some human-focused feel-good message.)

God is the Creator and Master over all, completely holy and worthy of all praise.  And we are His creation, completely dependent on Him.  ChristTrekker, I'm not sure what you mean by "positive view of oneself" so forgive me if I'm arguing against something you didn't mean... but I would disagree with that statement.  Romans 3:23: for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.  As humans, we are all depraved, sinful, and terrible people who God should want nothing to do with.  Nothing we do on our own can amount to anything.  But by His awesome mercy and grace, we're sanctified through Christ's sacrifice and resurrection - and made His children which IS something to be celebrated and could provide us a positive view of oneself if that's what you meant.  I guess the distinction is whether that positive view of oneself comes from within oneself or out of God's grace and mercy.

Anyways, being reminded of God's greatness and our smallness, everything gets put into the proper perspective and pride and humiliation go to the wayside.

I've been learning a lot from this thread. I've been collecting some quotations on the subject...

Humility is seeing things as they are.

"Those who stand in the strength of Christ’s righteousness alone find a confident hiding place from the attacks of men and Satan alike. True humility is not knocked off balance and thrown into a defensive posture by challenge or rebuke, but instead continues in doing good, entrusting the soul to our faithful Creator."

On false humility...
Some of us "feel no confidence before God. Which sounds like humility, but in reality it’s another symptom of pride. In those moments, we’re testifying that we believe our sins are greater than his grace. We doubt the power of Christ’s blood and we’re stuck staring at ourselves instead of Christ."

That quotation made me think of the ascetics and penitents of the 13 century with their hair shirts.

On hidden pride...
"As seriously dangerous as pride is, it’s equally hard to spot. When it comes to diagnosing our hearts, those of us who have the disease of pride have a challenging time identifying our sickness. Pride infects our eyesight, causing us to view ourselves through a lens that colors and distorts reality. Pride will paint even our ugliness in sin as beautiful and commendable"

On prideful judgments...
"While pride causes us to filter out the evil we see in ourselves, it also causes us to filter out God’s goodness in others. We sift them, letting only their faults fall into our perception of them."

On pride and arrogance...
"Pride is a state of mind or, more essentially, a condition of the heart in which a person has supplanted the rule of God over his life with the rule of his own will. Instead of depending entirely on God, as was God’s design, a proud heart now looks to itself to decide what is good and evil. This was exactly the folly of Adam and Eve when they determined to disobey God to become like God."

And my favourite...

"Pride is the root of every sin and pollutes every otherwise righteous affection, motivation, and action."

Sorry, I'm kinda bombing the Forum with information on pride. I'm just so intruiged. Here's another quotation. This one is from a book by Jerry Bridges called Respectable Sins.

“Of all the characters in the Bible who seem so repugnant to us, probably no one is more so than the self-righteous Pharisee...but the irony is that even as we condemn him, we can easily fall into the same self-righteous attitude.”

Guilty as charged. I hear that story about the Pharisee and think 'Man, that Pharisee!' And then the author pulls the rug out from under my feet and says that the moment we think -- 'sure glad I'm not like that' -- "we join the Pharisee in his prideful boast. Pride can become so prevalent in our lives that it starts to become normal, it begins to seem okay. We stop seeing it as a sin against God and we see it as a normal part of our life." Yikes! I think I have some work to do.

But I think you're right ChristTrekker. It is a delicate area. Perhaps the danger of humiliation that you mentioned lies with making pride about the other guy rather than about ourselves. Perhaps it's a "tend your own garden" sort of thing.

And Kerrick, I see the wisdom in your words: "I guess the distinction is whether that positive view of oneself comes from within oneself or out of God's grace and mercy." We are deceived if we think otherwise. To think otherwise is to put ourselves above God.

First lyric written: 
Where is my Savior?
Destroying the plague of my vanity
He is my Savior?
Who shatters my pride so I am not deceived

Kerrick, my use of "positive view of oneself" is only that linked to the concept of emotional health. That is, it is not emotionally healthy to view oneself like, "I suck, everything I do is crap, I'm worthless, my life is a waste, and I might as well kill myself." That's a very negative self-view. So if someone speaking against pride is pushing you to see yourself in that light, it's wrong, and not a healthy biblical view of what true humility is. A proper sense of accomplishment and achievement can make one proud, without being prideful.

The common theme in this thread seems to be that pride is a problem if it leads us to inflate or deflate ourselves. If we see ourselves as more than we are, we've fallen into the trap of conceit and if we see ourselves as less than we are, we have fallen into the trap of false humility.

Sometimes, though, comparing ourselves to others isn't really prideful in my opinion.  It depends partly on the circumstance and partly on the motive.

For example, with my Big Chris & D'Bare Bones Band, it is a cigar box guitar blues album.  There are several people who have jumped into this fold and have done albums.  Many, if not most, of these artists are just not good.  They can't sing, play well, or write a decent song.  My album is so much better than many of theirs.

Is that prideful?  Could be.  But, I am only comparing overall end results.  Without further clarifying that there are other artists who have done cigar box guitar albums who leave my music in the dust, it would seem prideful.  Shane Speal and Justin Johnson are worlds better players and writers than I.  Also, is my intent to put these "lesser artists" down and hurt them, or is it simply someone objectively listening?  My intent is to push myself to be better.  I want our movement to realize that most folks are not going to buy an album that sounds like it was made 100 years ago.  The production needs to be world class if we want to be taken serious.

At the root of it, pride can sneak in at any point, though.  We can have pride in a job well done, but when it comes to lording it over people as though someone else can't do a better one we have fallen into sin.

Motive. Yes. It's a good point.

I like this quote: the "humble Christian has so much to do at home and sees so much evil in his own that he is not apt to be very busy with other hearts." It's the "man in the mirror" scenario. As you say, your intent is to push yourself to be better, not to feed your ego.

THEY COULD NOT TAKE YOUR PRIDE... IN THE NAAAAAME OF LOOOOOVE!

I like that French has two words for pride, "fierté" which sort of means taking pride in an accomplishment, and "orgueil" which is more vanity. I'm fine with objective pride, fierté, and being able to say something I've done is good (which doesn't happen as often as I'd like, but maybe that's not such a bad thing...). C.S. Lewis has a good point in saying that it's ok to be proud of an accomplishment if you'd be just as happy for someone else living that accomplishment, and it's sort of my check for seeing if I'm fier or orgueilleux. I try to have a right opinion of my skills, and that often bounces between over- and underestimating them.

My goal in life is to always have the humility to 1) check myself before screwing up and 2) admitting it when I do screw up. Not there yet.

We are a work in progress until our last breath

I have a working idea for a new song.  On the mission trip I was on, they tell stories daily as to why Street Reach and the Brinkley Heights Urban Academy exist.  One of those stories involved a little girl named Jessica who came to their summer Bible clubs/day camps.  She lived a few houses up from the church that started Street Reach.  Her whole family was shot over a $10 bag of weed.  The rest of the family, but this little 6 year old died.

The working title of my song is "Drive By Lullaby".

alldatndensum wrote:

I have a working idea for a new song.  On the mission trip I was on, they tell stories daily as to why Street Reach and the Brinkley Heights Urban Academy exist.  One of those stories involved a little girl named Jessica who came to their summer Bible clubs/day camps.  She lived a few houses up from the church that started Street Reach.  Her whole family was shot over a $10 bag of weed.  The rest of the family, but this little 6 year old died.

The working title of my song is "Drive By Lullaby".

Good idea for a song, but what a horrible account. 

Makes me think of Neal Morse's song "He Died at Home."

Staybrite wrote:

alldatndensum wrote:

I have a working idea for a new song.  On the mission trip I was on, they tell stories daily as to why Street Reach and the Brinkley Heights Urban Academy exist.  One of those stories involved a little girl named Jessica who came to their summer Bible clubs/day camps.  She lived a few houses up from the church that started Street Reach.  Her whole family was shot over a $10 bag of weed.  The rest of the family, but this little 6 year old died.

The working title of my song is "Drive By Lullaby".

Good idea for a song, but what a horrible account. 

Those aren't the only stories I could use of theirs.  I took notes in my phone of several of the accounts that the pastor there spoke of in their neighborhood.  If I had days and days to pick his brain, I bet I could do several albums worth of stories as Memphis is now in the top cities for violent crime in the USA and for prostitution/human trafficking.