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It’s possible that this isn’t a noticed struggle for you. Lucky. You may be the type of person that just doesn’t have too much of an issue. Your temperament, personality, and drive just don’t push you toward this pit. Maybe.
Or, it could be that you struggle and don’t know it. Selfish ambition is something we’re good at disguising. We live in a world that glorifies in-your-face pride, and sometimes we feel pretty good by comparison.
Either way, I’ve been defining it wrong.
And how we define things influences how we live.
I first really wrestled with the issue of pride and humility when I followed it as a theme in my Bible read-thru one year. Well, at least, that was when I decided to acknowledge my wrestling. Pride has always been a temptation for me. As a young child, my mom had me memorize a verse in Proverbs about letting others compliment you—because I was a little too good at complimenting myself. As I got older, I got smarter. I’m sure the pride seeped out into the open sometimes, but it mostly resided in the hidden-from-others areas of my heart. After all, out-in-the-open pride isn’t too acceptable in the Christian community, but hidden pride is. We just call it ‘drive’, or ‘competitiveness’. But, I never liked pride. I knew it wasn’t such a good thing. So I followed the idea in my read-thru one year and it changed my life. I realized that pride isn’t only wrong—it’s stupid. We serve a God who is so big that any accomplishment I make is trivial in comparison. I realized that Paul wasn’t exaggerating when he said that he would only boast in “Christ and Him crucified.” So I defined (and taught) humility as “seeing yourself accurately in the sight of God.” I wasn’t asking us to pretend that we’re not good at things (false humility), nor was I defining humility in terms of personality. It seemed like a good definition, and I attempted to live by it.
But, there were a couple of problems. For one, I discovered that “seeing myself accurately in the sight of God” wasn’t always enough to stop a bout of pride. When I am drunk on grandiose thoughts of myself, imagining myself from God’s perspective doesn’t always cut through to my heart. Sometimes, I just don’t care. I also discovered it was a wrong definition. Well, actually, one of my students discovered it for me.
I love it when people I’m discipling start to disciple me. Sky Henderson began to question my definition of humility. His basis was 1 Peter 5:6-7: “Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you at the proper time, casting all your anxiety on Him, because He cares for you.” He told me that the Greek grammar links humbling ourselves and casting our anxieties on God. In other words, humility is an act of trust, not just a change of perspective. It’s relational. Zephaniah 3:11-12 make the same connection, stating that humility is about the focus of our trust. In other words, pride is about self-trust, and humility is about God-trust.
But, if pride and humility are a matter of trust, how do I know who I trust? What are the evidences of my trust focus? I’d love to know what you think, and here’s a few to get us started:
• Peace—It’s no coincidence that Jesus follows His teaching on treasure with teaching on worry, because what we worry about shows us what we love. If God is our source, we can be at internal peace.
• Credit—If God is the source of my trust, than He gets the credit for anything good. But if I trust myself, than I take the credit.
• Simplicity—I love to strategize, and I would never want to confuse simplicity with laziness. But, if God is in charge, I can rely on His strategy. If I’m in charge, I have to agonize over every detail of my strategy, believing that the results depend on me.
• Prayer—If God is my trust focus, than wouldn’t I want to talk to Him about what is going on?
• Relationship—I don’t think it is coincidence that the Bible declares Moses to be “more humble than anyone on the face of the earth” (Numbers 12:3) and the only man “whom the LORD knew face to face” (Deut. 34:10). If I want to be humble, it will be a result of the presence of God inside me, not a result of my human effort.
How does this affect how we live? If pride isn’t pretending we’re less than we are, or seeing ourselves ‘smaller’, or simply a change of perspective, than we’re free to dream big dreams. We’re free to recognize the drives, gifts, and abilities God is shaping in us. Rather than spending our energy defending against pride, we can pursue the trust that comes with a well-nourished relationship with God. Rather than hesitating to engage because of fear of feeding our pride, we can leap to pour ourselves out for others, knowing it is God who does the work. And, rather than holding back because we fear we have nothing to offer, we can engage and relate, knowing that we can only offer Christ.
How about you? How does selfish ambition creep into your heart? How do you shift the focus of your trust back to Christ? What evidences do you see of the focus of one’s trust?
Thanks Rob. Good stuff. We are working through this all the time aren't we! I enjoyed the thoughts, with the relationship bullet, with Moses. That's a good point. You should teach another about the other end of the spectrum with feeling obscure or dealing with low self esteem in unhealthy ways. I'd like to know your thoughts.
ReplyDeleteThanks Aaron. That's a good point about the other end of the spectrum--I appreciate that lead. Hope you are well!
ReplyDeleteI have also struggled with this a lot, in many of the ways that you have mentioned. Growing up a church kid meant that I knew a lot of Bible, and I figured out how to hide sin pretty well.
ReplyDeleteI've really had to sort through this recently in light of my engagement. I immediately began to look for extra jobs to help pay for the wedding, which looks like I'm really dying to myself to get this thing paid for, but the reality is that my lack of humility leads me to act first-pray later, which is a reversal of what the Bible teaches.
That said, I've found that prayer really puts me in my place. Reflecting on the grace of Christ, who (in perfect humility) did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing and ultimately accomplished what I can't through his death, burial and resurrection, reminds me of my complete dependence on him to work through me for his glory. Which, as you said, is ultimately FREEING, because it means that as Jesus builds his church no one or nothing, including myself, can screw it up.
Hey Brandon,
ReplyDeleteThanks for the feedback. I'm glad for your thoughts--I was actually thinking of some conversations we've had as I wrote this, so I'm glad it found its way to you. Congrats on the upcoming wedding! When's the date?
Hey Aaron,
ReplyDeleteThere's quite a conversation going on on Facebook about the angle you raised about low self-esteem and shame. I posted this blog as a note and people are talking about it there.