The Obstacle of Pride

"but the worries of the world, and the deceitfulness of riches, and the desires for other things enter in and choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful." Mark 4:19

Yesterday I wrote about a stronghold that I suffer with and how God has convicted me of it. So I put it out there, I "confessed" it and repented of it. So I started moving forward, convictions over and in place. Man, was I wrong! God definitely wasn't done with me yet. He still had some convicting to do and whoa....did it hit me square between the eyes!

I sat down to do my quiet time this morning and started a new week in my Beth Moore study. The week was titled "To Glorify God", innocent enough it seemed. I do that already I thought, maybe she can teach me something new. Whoa......wrong again! What the week is about is pride and how it hinders us from glorifying God. A mind captive to self was the title for Day 1. What do you think about when you first awake in the morning... is the first question she asks. Okay there it was, a straight shot...square between the eyes! The last few weeks of "morning" I have woke thinking about me and my image and what was wrong with me. I'm not good enough, people don't love me as I am, I need to change....in other words I was suffering from low self-esteem. Pride wears many masks, she goes on to say, even the mask of low self-esteem. Ouch...that hurt! Most people associate pride with people who think too much of themselves, who are self centered and think they are better than others. Well I have learned that even low self-esteem is self centered. Anything not captive to the glorifying of God is pride. Humility is God-focused not self-focused.

I have been showcasing me rather than him. Something I desire and have expressed too many people, is that people will see God in me. I don't want to walk into a store, a meeting or even church and have people look at me and say...wow she looks good, I love her outfit; I wonder where she got it. Although this is something I enjoy knowing, that people find me attractive and think I dress really "cool"; I don't want this to be my focus. I desire that when I walk in front of people they see something different about me, a light so bright that they have to shield their eyes... I want them to see God. I don't want them to wonder where I got my outfit; I want them to wonder where is that light coming from and where do I find it. I want them to want what I have in Jesus, the true glory that comes in having him in my life.

So I think back over the last couple of weeks and the many times I have been in front of people and I wonder did they see that light that I so desire to shine? Nope...I don't think so. I have been too self-focused instead of God-focused. My light hasn't left but it has dimmed because I have hidden it under a cloak of low self-esteem...of pride. How many times have I missed showing God to people? How many opportunities have I lost while thinking of myself, to talk God to someone that needs to know him? Pride is satan’s specialty, it's what got him expelled from heaven and he will use this tool to bring us down even in the form of low self-esteem... anything that doesn't keep us God-focused. Pride is an enemy that destroys lives, relationships, marriages, ministries, but most importantly it destroys our chance to shine God’s glory. It destroys our usefulness.

I have a calling, I know that. I know that God is working through me to bring the gospel to people and not just the unsaved, but the saved as well. He wants people to see that what he can bring to their lives by what they see in me. Someone in my church that I respect and I strive to attain the Godly-ness that she portrays sent me an email and told me that she admires me and she looks up to me. What?!....Me?! But I look up to her, how can she look up to me? I had shared with her my weakness with depression and she reminded me of a line in the song we sang in church on Sunday..."you use the weak to lead the strong" and then she gave me the scripture of 2 Corinthians 12:9.."And he has said to me "My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness." Sometimes it's had to see ourselves as a instrument of God through our weakness’, we just want to get rid of them, make them go away, but as the rest of the scripture says: "Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me." Humility comes only from admitting our weaknesses."

Whoa, to those that think pride is a problem only in the lost or unsaved or that it is only defined with the people that think highly of themselves...what a wrong road you are on. I have learned this today. I am a Christian and I suffer from pride. I don't think highly of myself, neither am I conceited, but yet I suffer from pride. I have not made every important undertaking the last few weeks; God glorifying. I have not desired his glory above my own and in my service to others I have not shown God in me. God can only show himself great and mighty through the humble. He wants to make himself recognizable through me and if I allow my focus to become about me than it makes him unrecognizable.

This is a difficult lesson to learn and I have had to fall upon my knees in repentance (and confess it on this blog) and I am crying as I write this knowing that once again I am showing myself in a not so pretty light....but I do this, I hope in a spirit of humbleness. There is another conviction that God is working on me and I will write on it soon when I am able to admit to it. Pray for me friends! Pray that I live my life without pride, that I live a God-focused life. To live the life that I so desire and that God desires for me.

I leave you with this scripture and one last thought: My hand made all these things, Thus all these things came into being, declares the Lord. But to this one I will look, To him who is humble and contrite of spirit, and who trembles at My word" Isaiah 66;2 - What an amazing thought... having God look to me! For God to respect me when I remove the obstacle of pride: I want that, I desire that! As Beth Moore put it "God just likes to hang out with humble people" WOW!