I run the risk of writing such a great post on pride that I will be proud of it! (:( Any way I flip the issue of pride, it's a danger. S. Michael Wilcox described it as a gopher with many holes in our soul--it can pop up anytime, anywhere. And as soon as we think we've conquered pride, we've proud of our humility.
C.S. Lewis described it as such: "Catch [a man] at the moment when he is really poor in spirit and smuggle into his mind the gratifying reflection, 'By jove! I'm being humble,' and almost immediately pride--pride at his own humility--will appear. If he awakes to the danger and tries to smother this new form of pride, make him proud of his attempt--and so on, through as many stages as you please."
It was Mary Ellen Edmunds who said her soul had pride cancer. I loved her honesty. Pride is a cancer to the soul and we all have cancer. Fighting that cancer is a daily effort. Patricia Holland said she believes it's one of those things that must be fought again and again. C.S. Lewis once pointed out that the problem with following the Savior is that you have to start over each day as though nothing has been done before. We have to have a determined mind to daily strip and fight pride in all it's subtle mediums.
HOW?
We need God. Quoting Lewis's wisdom again: "In God you can 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."
Another antidote for pride is gratitude. If we recognize WHAT we have been given and WHO the Giver is, we are in position to fight pride. We awe at the Lord's mercifulness and grace. We want to give Him the glory; we want to render our lives to Him. Again, Lewis's insight speaks truth to my soul: "There is not only joy in humility but tremendous relief." We don't have to pretend; we don't have to compare; we just glory in God and give the glory all back to Him.
If I had a better handle on pride, I could tell you more about the joy and tremendous relief one receives but it's just a moonbeam. As soon as I seem to grab hold, it's gone; I feel proud that I got a glimmer and thus it becomes nearly impossible to catch and hold the glorious moonbeam of pride's antidote: humility.
Darn pride! I'll keep grabbing for those moonbeams. Daily.
P.S. If you ever wonder why I don't allow comments on my blog, it's because it's one of the ways I try to fight pride. It's so easy to feel proud when others pat me on the back publicly. I know I have co-dependency tendencies so it's a way to try to stop up prideful gopher holes... (I do appreciate private comments though. They give me the fortitude to keep trying.)
