“Pride Goes Before A Fall”

I remember hearing the story of a man who received a badge for humility, but they took it away from him because he wore it. Hmmmm. 

Pride is insidious. It’s sneaky and cunning. It disguises itself as honesty and righteousness and integrity. 

C.S. Lewis reminds us that “there is one vice of which no man in the world is free; which every one in the world loathes when he sees it in someone else; and of which hardly any people, except Christians, ever imagine that they are guilty themselves. […] There is no fault which makes a man more unpopular, and no fault which we are more unconscious of in ourselves.[…]The vice I am talking of is Pride or Self-Conceit: and the virtue opposite to it, in Christian morals, is called Humility.” ― C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

I came upon the “Litany of Humility” the other day and found it a real help to identifying  pride. Some of the lines almost caught in my throat as I read them….I almost choked trying to say them. Here’s a couple of them.

• Deliver me Jesus from the desire of being consulted and the fear of being forgotten
• Grant me the desire for others to be esteemed more than I ….. and to be praised and I unnoticed

Let’s look over the list and see if the Lord wants us to focus on a particular one. And let’s not be discouraged when the Lord reveals a sin in our life…. he wants to help us get free. This self awareness is good news. 

Let’s remember that “before destruction a man’s heart is haughty, but humility goes before honor.” (Proverbs 18:12)