Pride Goes Before My Falls: Pride, Ego, and the Ways They Constantly Set Me Up for Failure

If you have ever spent more than ten minutes around my, you probably already know what I am about to tell you. I am a total klutz. One of my friends was thoughtful enough to put this sign up outside the door of my dorm room to warn people…

Courtesy of  my friend Blake -Out of his kindness and thoughtfulness for others.

I’m convinced that God gave me five feet worth of leg and only an ounce of coordination in order to keep my pride in check. Anytime I start feeling prideful, I swear a crack magically appears in the sidewalk or a doorway materializes for me to trip on or run into. A perfect example happened just last week. I’ve been doing a pretty good job working out at the REC center these past couple of weeks in an effort to prepare for spring break (I’m going on a cruise with my two girlfriends – Karla and Sasha – and I’m very, very excited). As I’ve spent more and more time working out, I was beginning to feel pretty, shall we say, prideful in the results I was seeing. My routine requires the sauna which is located in the women’s locker room. To get out of the locker room there are four steps up and out a set of double doors. Four steps, average size, no big deal –walk up, walk out. My IPod was turned up and I was all set to go for a run – feeling good, feeling cocky – when I headed up the steps. Somewhere between the third and fourth step my foot stopped functioning correctly and I tripped. Because I am blessed to be six feet tall, my arms are so long they managed to reach the double doors and push them open allowing me to completely wipe out, sprawling out on the floor of a main hallway right in front of a guy walking by. I’m still missing pieces of my left knee from the vicious linoleum burn I sustained. And the guy didn’t even help me up.

 

Incidents similar to this happen to me literally on a daily if not hourly basis. God knows my heart. He knows that I have countless areas of insecurities and I believe with all my heart that not only do those insecurities make me unique but that Christ loves me and cherishes me despite those. Thank goodness for forgiveness, right? Otherwise I would be completely screwed. 

I’m pretty sure this verse describes me pretty well, especially if you look back to the women’s locker room.

Proverbs 16:18

Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall.

However, while I do have insecurities God has also given me a sense of self-worth and the knowledge that my value comes directly from Him. In addition to that, there are areas of my life that I excel at – for example, I can make a pretty neat poster (to be fair – some people may consider this a lame skill – so be it) – and it is easy for me to compare a skill I rock at to someone who doesn’t really have the same skill (nor do they necessarily want it) and for me to begin feeling prideful.

One of my posters - I think it looks pretty alright.

The cool thing about recognizing your pride is that two things can come from it – you can keep inflating your ego simply for the feeling of superiority over others or you can humbly recognize the areas you are awesome at that have caused you pride and understand how to utilize those areas in a non-prideful manner. Pride is not a bad thing. If you are great at something or have accomplished a goal or whatever, it is ok to be happy and feel good about that. When trouble starts is when you start to take full credit for things on your own shoulders, forgetting that God is really the reason you are good at and for anything. Christ gave you gifts and abilities – He wants us to be good stewards and use wisdom to utilize those gifts.

The Bible, specifically Proverbs, is packed with verses about pride. It helps to spend quality time reading those and reflecting on your own life. I know I’ve been spending a lot of time doing that, trying to understand that I can be awesome at something, give the glory and praise to God for that, and not need to alert the world about it and receive recognition.

Proverbs 27:2
Let another praise you, and not your own mouth; someone else, and not your own lips.

What I want is for God to grant me wisdom and understanding to use my gifts to glorify Him and help others. I want to be a woman with a meek and humble spirit – otherwise, I’ll probably end up a paralytic before I’m 30.

Isaiah 66:2
Has not my hand made all these things, and so they came into being?" declares the LORD. "This is the one I esteem: he who is humble and contrite in spirit, and trembles at my word."

( For Verses on Pride Click Here)