Humility and The True Cost of Pride

It’s the new year and you all know that I’ve not done much on the planning/resolutions front. Holly left to go back to college yesterday, so I sat with my planner a bit and did jot down a few goals like Bible study topics for this year, personal goals, ministry goals, and items I need to buy once “for the year” to make my life a little easier/more organized (birthday cards, hosiery, feminine products, cat litter, wrapping paper–all the stuff I will need in emergency mode if I don’t buy them ahead. haha.)

I have nailed down the books I’ll be reading for the next 12 months, thanks to all of your lovely recommendations. I’ve started Art and the Bible by Francis Shaeffer  on Elizabeth’s recommendation, and also plan Devoted: Great Men and Their Godly Moms by Tim Challies as a “January read” on my friend Lauren’s mom’s recommendation.  I recently finished A Shepherd’s Look at Psalm 23 on Lauren’s recommendation and LOVED IT.

If you’re not aware, we’re also reading through Andrew Murray’s classic book Humility on the blog and talking through it on Instagram Stories. (link to the book is to Amazon but it’s available in pdf online free!)

This is one of my all time favorite books because we all need the reminder life without humility is wasted and futile and resisted by God.

There are two potential problems in our pursuit of humility, though.

1. Pursing humility as a virtue without focusing on our meek, gentle Jesus produces either a self-loathing that looks more like poor self image than humility, or an icky outward “humblebrag” (as Tim Challies calls it)  like a Uriah Heep from David Copperfield who is a self proclaimed “umble servant” who makes himself look harmless with all his talk about his humility while veiling his grand designs to rip off the family he works for.
2. Our blindness to pride. We can’t become humble until we address our pride and so often we are blind to it. As in, we literally don’t know we have a glaring problem that everyone else can see.

Pride is hard to define because it morphs just when we’ve located it in our lives.

• Pride is a feeling of superiority or arrogance that says I’m special or above/exempt from the laws of God.
• Pride is conceit or an inflated view of your own self importance.
• Pride is a smugness about your nationality, occupation, location, friend set, what you do or don’t do.
• We can let pride morph in holy areas like ministry, theological study, or practical living.
• We can pride ourselves in our opinions and look down on those who don’t share them.
• Pride can become so bad that we don’t consider the needs of others because we don’t care or don’t see them. Indifference doesn’t even notice them at all.  As my dad would say, “She can’t see past the end of her own nose.” How’s that for horse sense?

Even good things that should be seen as a blessing like marriage, motherhood, school, clothing, eating choices, followers on social media, opportunities for ministry, can all be sinfully morphed by our own pride to become tools/weapons(?) we use to prop ourselves up for aggrandizement.

Pride is what makes us take offense, get our nose out of joint, bristle at rebuke, resist being “judged” (how dare you!?). Pride is what makes us want to be recognized and appreciated. Pride is what makes us angry when we aren’t considered and when we’re overlooked. Pride says we deserve better, that they should have considered ME. Pride wants to be in the know and let everyone know all you do know. Pride insists on being heard and understood. Pride name drops and seeks credit for self. The list could go on and on, but you get the idea.

And we need to come to grips with this because pride always costs us way more than we realize.

When we sin, the people around us suffer from our pride.

And we also suffer the consequences of our own pride by loss of trust, loss of friendship, loss of reputation, ministry opportunities. We spend time out of fellowship with God, perhaps the most tragic consequence of all.