A few years ago I heard a story of a woman who, during testimony time at her church, stood up and boasted that she was so thankful she didn't struggle with pride.
When I heard this story, I thought, 'everyone, every single human on the face of this earth, struggles with pride in some way or another'. In fact, I dare say that every sin can be traced back to a root sin of pride. I mean think about it. The originator of sin is Lucifer himself who was banished from Heaven because of his great pride problem: he wanted to be God. Then Lucifer/Satan/the serpent tempted Eve with the same pride problem he had in Heaven: if she ate of the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil her eyes would be opened and she would be like God, knowing good and evil. She was tempted to be prideful and she fell for the serpent's lie. BAM. Sin has now entered the world. Pride was the beginning of who we now know as Satan. Pride was the beginning of sin entering the world. We are all born as sinners...So to say we don't have pride is really a prideful declaration!
Romans 3:23 says "For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." We all have sin. Therefore we all struggle with pride in some form or fashion.
The irony in this woman's testimony is that it was her pride that caused her to believe that she didn't struggle with it!
One of the best tools my precious mentor passed on to me about pride was this: look at it like the Whac-A-Mole game. This is the game where the mole pops out of the hole and you have to smash it with a foam hammer. It's really a great stress reliever game if you've never tried it! Anyway, we need to view our pride as this game. It's always popping up somewhere in our lives and we need to be keenly aware and watching for it so we can smash it down! Once we have smashed it down in one area (and when I say smashing it down, I mean applying God's truths in the midst of the temptation) we need to be looking for it to pop up somewhere else.
If you have found yourself reading this blogpost, know that you have been prayed for. And my prayer is that the Holy Spirit would open our eyes to the wretched, stinky, prideful areas of sin in our lives.
Have some fun smashing!
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