The Plastic Jewels of Pride

Pride is a terrible beast. It beats it's furry chest and makes us cry when we hurt it. It's a big handsome demon that prevents us from laughing at our silliness. It infects every single person and lies barely noticed until it's so prominent you don't care anymore. I swing between hating pride passionately and being thoroughly but comically annoyed by it. Pride leaves us insensitive and leads us to hurt others. Oh pride, it leaves us blind.

For some reason, I've become really sensitive to pride lately, really good at seeing it and seeing it's effects. I've also noticed that often times, our initial reaction or choice of words is what we actually feel or think before we have time to rationalize it and say what we think we mean or want to mean. That isn't always the case, however, and it varies from person to person. One thing that pride has done to me is separate me from my friends and God, both when I have pride in myself and when I see it in my friends. Pride is one of those things that doesn't go away as we grow up, it only gets worse.

We all know what pride is and what it does, telling all that would be beating a dead horse. To say I have no pride would be both untruthful and prideful, which is quite the opposite of what I would be trying to say. I have lots of pride, unfortunately, and I can now see it better and see what it does, whether it affects me or others. The lovely thing is that Jesus has relieved me of some of my pride and given me the ability to laugh at myself a lot more than I used to be able to. (I phrased that last bit as "used to could" in my head before I typed it as it is. I will always be a Claxton boy and I'm okay with that.)

The only way we get rid of our pride, however, begins with begging Jesus to break us of it, then constantly doing stuff to humble ourselves. God will certainly provide you with enough opportunities to do so. We must then realize that we haven't done anything or achieved anything of worth apart from Jesus. All our talents and gifts are God-given and unless we thank God for them and know that we didn't earn them, it just becomes pride.

When we break our pride, we begin to truly live and truly serve others. When our pride is broken, we know a lightness and a happiness that we couldn't have known before. Because Jesus has broken me of some of my pride, I'm much happier. I laugh a lot more, I don't give the tiniest crap about keeping secrets about myself. It is better to be humble. Much, much better. Again, I know I'm still prideful. I know that I don't know how prideful I am. I've reworded some of these sentences so they didn't sound so prideful which, noting the above point of how our initial reaction is often the truest one, is in itself prideful. If you ever see me being prideful, feel free to call me out on it in front of as many people as you wish. I'll probably cower for a minute, but then agree and laugh about it later.

The pride game never ends. It goes by many names: respect, entitlement, and the like. If you've ever uttered the phrase "I deserve better," you may be correct, but you may also be acting pridefully. Truth is, we don't deserve crap. We have all treated people poorly and God worse. Someone slaps you, whether physically or emotionally, relationally, or whatever way someone may hurt you, you are commanded to turn your cheek so they can do it again. One thing I'm trying to do is to only insist my point or my rightness when it really matters and when I know for a fact I'm right. I often end up insisting my rightness when someone is being prideful and insisting their own correctness, which ends up with me being prideful right back, which I don't mean to do, but it happens a lot more than I like.

Haha, I started this off thinking that I'm kind of humble, but I ended up reminding myself that I'm really still prideful, which brings me to the secondary point of this blog, which is that God often answers prayers in ways other than the ways we want or ask for. I pray, expecting a wad of cash to fall into my hands that will pay for mission trip, but end up balancing my checkbook and realizing that the small donation I did get is just enough to let me work out my finances and not have to worry so much about money when I get back. That in itself was humbling, realizing I'm a greedy dick who would rather take a handout than be fiscally responsible.

All in all, I guess I'll end with this: God is Jehova-jireh, meaning He will provide for us. He is a good Father who loves His children desperately. Jesus is the Great Physician, healing us of our hurts and the hurts we cause others. God probably chuckles as we all run around with our paper crowns and plastic jewels, prattling on about what we're owed. God doesn't, however, screw around and fiercely desires a spotless Bride. That said, we ought to get our crap together, drop the chaff, and focus on Jesus. Lord knows I need to.

Love,
Colton

To reiterate and surmise without saying it the first time.

Well dang, computer died and I lost the post I was writing. Meh, I'll just surmise the points:

• I don't know things, but I learn them slowly and get closer to God and that keeps me going
• God is good and I'm dumb, but that's okay, because God is good
• The simple, foundational things are the most important: read Bible, pray, know that God is good, don't flip off old ladies
• People are all different
• Glorify God, love God, love people

I'll repost a prayer I prayed the other day since it was a good and simple prayer.

Lord, let the Truth be known. Mend broken hearts and bring people nearer to You. Jesus help us. Amen.

Amen and amen.

Love, I think,
Colton