Ed, my old neighbour from Saskatchewan, isn鈥檛 shy about showing pride. He insists if you don鈥檛 toot your own horn no one else will do it for you. My old neighbour sees pride as a positive attitude for he feels it is self-respect or satisfaction in something done or owned. He says we should have pride in the accomplishments of our children, family, and friends. Pride, he feels, might turn into a high opinion of oneself, even haughtiness or arrogance for a few individuals, but pride isn鈥檛 a problem with him.
Is it possible we mainly think we are humble enough and not overly proud in our attitudes?
I was telling Ed that I have been doing a study on pride and the need for Christians to serve God and others in invisibility or secrecy, so they don鈥檛 get prideful. Jesus said the essence of spiritual life is to love God with all one鈥檚 heart, soul, mind and strength and one鈥檚 neighbor as oneself. Our pride or preoccupation with ourselves causes us to exclude God and other people from their rightful place in our hearts. Often we focus on how well we are doing, our image or appearance so God and our neighbour are afterthoughts if given any thought at all. Pride is why we evade, deny, blame and defend ourselves if someone or God鈥檚 word corrects us. It is the original sin as it is our desire and attempt to be equal with God. Pride is the reason we feel more important than other people when we are better, smarter or holier than others. Pride is at the heart of desire for approval and motivates us to impress others for their applause and recognition. When we act to impress others, we are showing off to get attention.
As, Christians, Jesus warned that we need to be careful not to do our acts of righteousness so they are seen by others who will honour us for them. 鈥淲hen we give to the needy it is to be done in secret. We should not let our left hand know what our right hand is doing. When we give in secret, God sees it and will reward us. When we pray, we should go into a room and shut the door and pray to our Heavenly Father, who is unseen. God, who sees the praying done in secret, will reward it.鈥� When we fast no one should know we are doing it. What we do is not to be obvious to others so they will honour or applaud us. When we seek to do good things, we must not do them as badges of honor for others to see.
The way to transform our prideful hearts is practising serving God and others by keeping our deeds hidden. When we do good things for others, we do not say anything about them. Others need not see them. Our actions are not to revolve around us in any way. We serve others by putting them before ourselves, by swallowing our pride. God sees when we are not too important for the interruptions and demands of others. He sees when we are humble enough to turn the other cheek.聽聽聽聽聽聽
