Pride
- Mark Merrell
- Feb 4, 2008
- Series: Suburban Life
The word evokes a multitude of thoughts and emotions. It conjures up everything from pride in one's work to pride in one's kids to pride in one's individual lot in life. But, what is pride, really? And, how does it impact our lives? In the chapter entitled "The Greatest Sin" in the book Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis offers a profound, yet easily understandable, glimpse into the sin known as "pride." Below I'll try to offer a brief recap and a couple thoughts on how "pride" pops up in our lives. Most, if not all, of my thoughts are simply regurgitations of Lewis's amazing insight, so if this in the least bit peaks your interest ... then I'd take fifteen minutes and read the eighth chapter of Mere Christianity. You'll be glad you did.
Okay, so in any discussion on pride, the first question that must be addressed is: what is pride? US Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart, in drafting an opinion that outlawed certain types of pornography, wrote: "I shall not attempt further to define the kinds of material to be embraced within that shorthand description ...But I know it when I see it." That's the way pride is. It's a very elusive term-used to describe, on the one hand, a perfectly healthy self-respect for one's life (e.g.: pride in one's children, pride in a job well done) and, on the other, an utterly unhealthy, anti-Christian desire to be better than others - i.e., the belief in one's superiority over another. Lewis describes the ladder as leading "to every other vice" - as "the complete anti-God state of mind." He went on to note that "there is no fault which makes a man more unpopular, and no fault which we are more unconscious of in ourselves. And the more we have it in ourselves, the more we dislike it in others."
At the core of sinful pride is a need to be better than others, to outdo our brother. Pride doesn't seek to be good or even great: it seeks to be better than those around it. Thus, the by-product of pride is competition and its supreme object-power. "Pride gets no pleasure out of having something, only out of having more than the next man." In the end, pride is that gut-wrenching feeling deep down inside us to have power over others - that deep-seated desire to be better than those around us just for the sake of being better than them. It's the sin that leads to so many others, and the chief architect in keeping us away from the throne of God.
But, how does pride manifest itself in our lives, and more specifically, in our culture here in Katy? I think it's easy to consider pride a sin more prevalent in previous eras, or other cultures. Think of the mobster willing to do whatever it takes to be "the boss" or the Wall Street stock trader that cheats and manipulates his way to the top. "We're not like that," we think to ourselves. "Pride doesn't manifest itself here - not like it does in other places." Nothing could be further from the truth. The desire for more, just for the sake of having more; the desire to be better than our brother; the need to prove our power - it's everywhere around us. It just shows up in different ways in our suburban culture. For instance, we don't want a nicer car until our neighbor brings home a Lexus. We don't need a bigger house until our best friend buys a 7,000 squarefoot mansion. The jewelry our wife wears is absolutely perfect until our co-worker buys his wife a two karat diamond ring. Have you ever felt yourself not wanting someone you care about to achieve success? That's your pride boiling over. Heck, we even have pride in our religious life. Ever find yourself telling someone how "good" you are - how chaste you've become, how self-controlled you are, how many "religious" things you have going on in your life? That's yet another by-product of pride.
No, pride is as ever-present in our culture as it has been since the snake appealed to Eve's pride in the Garden of Eden. You and I deal with it on a daily basis. We know it's there, bubbling down inside of us. We hate it. We despise it. But, we don't know what to do about it. That's the quandary I find myself in. I know I suffer from pride. I know I'm a slave to many of its impulses, but I'm unsure of what to do about it. But, why is that? What is it about pride that makes it so difficult to conquer? I think it's because pride is different from other sins. It's impossible to fight externally - i.e., through simply stopping something. Pride is not like, for example, having a foul mouth or being a drunkard. Those sins can be stopped through action - you simply stop cussing or you stop drinking excessively. They can largely be stopped through habit. Pride, on the other hand, is more of a reflection of our heart. You can't put a band-aid on pride, pull it off a year later, and have everything be better underneath. It requires transformation - because, at its heart, the pride in our lives is a direct reflection of our relationship with God and how we view ourselves in light of him.
Lewis notes: "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." To me, this is the first step towards hemming in our pride - coming to an accurate understanding of who God is - of His true greatness. As long as we consider ourselves on par with God and are not coming to Him with a grateful heart, we'll continually find ourselves dealing with pride. It isn't until we know God as our ultimate Father - as supplying all our needs, as being our ultimate guide through life - that we'll be able to really start dealing with our pride. It sounds so simple, yet, in my opinion, it's the only cure all to our never-ending bout with pride: understanding God more clearly, understanding what his Son Jesus did for us on the cross, becoming more aware of our utterreliance on Him. Without conquering this foundational aspect of our faith, we're going to be fighting pride on a constant basis. And no matter what we try, we're never going to overcome it.
In the end, dealing with our pride is an ongoing process, one that as we grow in our relationship with Christ and understanding of the Father gets easier and easier. And, as always, our ultimate example is Christ, as noted in Philippians.
"Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves ... Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death, even death on a cross!"
If we follow Christ's example, the pride in our lives will slowly begin to dissipate away. And we'll become people who don't think about pride very often - because we won't be thinking about ourselves at all.