I Do! Because pride is what caused Satan to fall, and if I have any, then I’m acting like him, and that is unacceptable to me. However, what if I have pride? What can I do to get rid of it once and for all? I’m hoping I can help you, as the Lord helped me this week.
First, I didn’t “think” I had any pride left. I had been on this journey of sanctification for years and years, and thought for sure pride was a thing of the past… hmmm…. just saying that, I see some more pride! Yikes. Because pride is deceiving and cunning and hidden behind almost everything. But when we can expose it, we can deal with it one “prideful moment” at a time. Let me share a few stories with you that the Lord used to show me how pride was still very present.
I had to get a tire fixed so I went to our local repair shop. The fella working on my tire was young, but he seemed to know what he was doing while looking for the hole. So I watched him as he put it in a tub of water and was able to locate the leak quite quickly. He told me it was the stem valve that was leaking. I then said, “I just got my car out of the repair shop where they changed my brakes, perhaps they accidently broke it.” And this young man is ALL his wisdom said, “Maybe it was like that when you took it in to them.” I said, “Yeah… could have been.” Then I took my car and drove away.
The Lord used this experience to show me pride! Yes, in this was pride. Because I “blamed” the auto-repair shop for breaking the stem! The young guy was right, I really will never know. But I blamed! See, pride manifests blame. Looking for someone to take the rap so that we don’t look bad, or look silly, or look stupid. But just there, I did all those things to myself by blaming someone else.
The other experienced happened this same week. I was invited to a church function, and I responded with, “I have a flat tire so I cannot come.” Gee…. sounds like one of the stories Jesus told where he held a banquet but one-by-one people had an excuse not to go. I believe I understand what He was saying there. Not just that we are to go out and gather others to come, but those that DID NOT come, were in pride. They blamed something for not attending, instead of just saying, “I don’t want to come.” That is the truth! I could have gone to the event, I could have used another car. But the truth was, I forgot about it, and it was too late to go. See, the responsibility was on me.
Once I realized that I still had pride, in this way, I confessed. Because what is also hidden in here is “fear of man.” Fear of man is a manifestation of pride, because again, we don’t want to “look” bad. We want others to accept us and approve of us. We want others to know we do have value! All that is pride.
So this is what I prayed to the Lord: My Heavenly Father. Thank you for using these things in my life to expose pride. It is sin that is very tormenting and impacts almost every area of my life. So I confess the sin of pride, fear of man, and blame. And I now tell the spirit of pride to GO NOW in Jesus name. Amen.
Now, it seems like the revelation I just shared with you was a piece of cake… not hardly…. I had to go through some painful things this week, to really see myself in a mirror, which wasn’t pretty. I was so embarrassed by some of the things I said and did this week, all winding up to my restoration. But at the time, that’s not what I thought. I was truly tormented in my mind, trying to fix things, wondering what was happening, but it wasn’t until the Lord showed me that pride, fear of man and blame were at the root. And since I know that being embarrassed is pride, I knew it had to be pride. So that is when I began asking God, what is going on in me!
Then, after discovering, praying and releasing those things, I had an opportunity to be tested: I was looking for something that I couldn’t find. I immediately started to blame my husband for taking or moving it, but what I thought in my head and what came out of my mouth proved to me that the Lord truly delivered. Because I was going to say, “you…” took it, but what I said was, “I misplaced it.” What a difference! For years and years I’ve blamed my husband for the smallest of things, like this. How “prideful” that was of me, yet didn’t even realize that’s what I was doing. I hated doing it but couldn’t stop it. Now that what is BEHIND all that is gone, now I can stop it. I have to be renewed in my mind and form new habits. Because if for years my MO was to blame, then I have to retrain myself so that my MO is to take responsibility, be honest, and not blame.
Wow! I can’t tell you how my life has changed even more this week. Because having had these sins exposed and removed, has impacted EVERY relationship in my life. Not fearing man and what he may think of me, but fearing only God and what He thinks of me. Not getting embarrassed if I said something or did something that wasn’t good, because Love covers. And most of all, confessing that I still had pride. That is a hard one to chew, but here’s the good news. As long as it is hidden, it will have power. But once we confess that we have it, and permit God to work in our lives to remove it, that’s when “all hell” will break loose OUT of you… And believe me, the ride is bumpy, but who wants to keep that junk?
What I shared were just a few examples of pride, however, there are so many other “faces” to pride, and they can come in with self-pity, self-hatred, manipulation and control, anger, jealousy, envy, judgmental, critical, drivenness, victimization, entitlement, to name a few. I think you get the picture, and I hope that you seek God as well to expose pride in your life, not be ashamed or mad at yourself that it is there, but simply take it to our Father in Heaven who wants to free you more than you do.
When we realize how cunning pride is, we have won half the battle.
