How often do you find yourself "struttin' your stuff"? So often I find myself walking along, minding my own business, then someone crosses my path and "POOF!" Up go my feathers of pride.
I am not one to pick an argument or create a disturbance. I do not find pleasure in conflict; I avoid it whenever it is non-constructive or begins to become destructive. I figure my opinion is not all that important in the scheme of things. I believe opinions are for the most part begging for arguments--why else would we find such delight in offering them when no one has asked for them? Such was the case in a recent post I wrote. It was an opinion piece. I really wasn't thinking about the folks that might disagree with me should they venture into my stream. I was simply stating things as I saw them.
I am not one to shrink from the obvious assaults on my faith. However, I believe Christians (and I am one) must be ever vigilant when addressing issues in a public forum. We must do more than give lip-service to our Lord. We must remember to put on the whole armor of God when we address society's ills and culture's sin. Otherwise, it is very easy to trip over stumbling blocks of pride and fall into sin ourselves. I believe most divides and bitterness in relationships begin with a "haughty spirit".
"Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall." Proverbs 16:18
A relationship is easily maimed and destroyed because we believe ourselves to be correct in all our assumptions. We sometimes sit behind our monitors and get tiffed at every word we read that sits in opposition to our views, i.e. "haughty spirit". The stumbling block is the opposition to our view. The "fall" comes when we forge ahead on our pathway to address the opposition and trip over our own pride. (After all, they are wrong and we are right.) The angel of light, Satan, loves to play with our pride. He thoroughly and completely delights in pitting Christians against Christians. He loves to use us as extentions of his legs. He abhors it when we apologize or repent.
Remember when Satan played with the Son of God? He took Jesus to the pinnacles of the earth and tempted Him to look at all He could have if He would but bow down and worship him. Satan was poised to give (ha!) Jesus everything on earth if He would simply give in to the temptation of pride. Had Jesus bit into that proverbial fruit, we would all be toast, my friends. Oh that we could be as He and not fall prey to our flesh and haughty spirits. Oh that we would truly fear God and seek Him in all our ways. That we would so deeply abide in Him that our flesh would die without a struggle!
"To fear the Lord is to hate evil; I hate pride and arrogance, evil behavior and perverse speech." Proverbs 8:13
Know why we hate arrogant folks? Know why we see conceit so clearly? Because our eyes are filled with beams.
"When pride comes, then comes disgrace, but with humility comes wisdom." Proverbs 11:2
Why do we succumb to pride? Why do we find ourselves not worse or better than anyone else when we seek to pick specks from another's eyes? God is sanctifying us. We Christians should rejoice when another points out our pride and arrogance. For when they do, if we welcome that reproof, we will be humbled. And with that humility comes wisdom.
"Pride only breeds quarrels, but wisdom is found in those who take advice." Proverbs 13:10
Why do we quarrel (i.e. argue, debate, divide, and strive) with one another? Pride. No one enjoys being labeled arrogant, condescending, self-righteous, pride-filled and haughty. No one likes to find themselves looking at the mirror of their soul when they see the faults in another. But alas: "A man's pride brings him low, but a man of lowly spirit gains honor." Proverbs 29:23
As case and point, let me add this little quote from a person who recently succumbed to the flesh:
"I guess it's a great way of finding out how prideful and condescending you really are, when someone else comes in who may not even be as prideful and condescending as I really am in my heart, but simply has the audacity to disagree with me. I don't tend to respond to such humbly. It would be far better for me and people like ______, both for me to only speak the truth in love, turn a deaf ear to insults, and a constant knee in prayer for myself and them. But unless the Holy Spirit zaps me, that's never going to happen perfectly unless I'm acting in a movie (and maybe not even then)."
To me, this person is a Christian yielding almost immediately to the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit within. Can another with whom this person disagreed find the wisdom of falling prey to a haughty spirit and a pride-filled heart? Possibly, but it may take a few more tumbles to bring about the humility.
[NOTE: I wrote this post, because I, too, fell prey to the flesh and spoke with tongue-in-cheek witticism to BDW in my OBAMA post. When I find another's words unbecoming and unseemly, it is my responsibility to respond as my friend, Byron, commented in my WOE UNTO YOU post: "And above all things have fervent charity among yourselves: for charity shall cover the multitude of sins."1 Peter 4:8.
Ah, charity! Sweet charity. Mercy. Grace. Gentleness. Can you see how charity can cover the multitude of sins? I do. But that's another post.] selahV
[copyrighted, SelahV Today, 2008]
