Are Your Pride and Ego Getting in the Way of Remarkable Things?
The Bible says, “Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall” (Prov. 16:18). The Book of Common Prayer pleads, “From pride, vain-glory, and hypocrisy; from envy, hatred, and malice, and all uncharitableness, good Lord, deliver us.” Daniel Defoe wrote, “Pride is the first peer and president of Hell.”
For us who say we are disciples, it is not that we do great and marvelous things but that we are, as Oswald Chambers says, “good in motive because we have been made good by the supernatural grace of God.”
To find inner healing, to maintain a healthy balance, and to avoid relapsing into old, ineffective patterns of behavior, we need to be willing to turn loose many of our external images and allow our faith to take us to the next step of emotional growth. Mahatma Gandhi wrote, “Many could forego heavy meals, a full wardrobe, a fine house, etc.; it is the ego they cannot forego.”
We have all accumulated so many trappings during our lives — externals that manifest themselves in how we relate to our money, our homes, the success of our children, our position in the community, and the way we wield power in the pulpit or the boardroom. The more strongly attached we remain to outward appearances of success, the more difficult it will be to move away from feeling emotionally exhausted.
To determine whether this is a problem for you, ask yourself these three questions:
- Am I overly attached to something because it puffs my ego and makes me look good to others, like a new car or fashionable wardrobe?
- Am I willing to take a small risk by looking at one area in my life where pride reigns supreme and begin to see it as a gift to share with others rather than a trophy about which to brag?
- Am I willing to play armchair archaeologist and dig beneath my surface through the debris of hurt feelings and pain to discover who I really am?
What are you evaluating right now about your life? Are your pride and ego getting in the way of some remarkable things God wants to do to you, with you, and for you? Until now you’ve been adding more years to your life and that may have been about it. But when you take this principle and put it to work, you will begin to put more life to your years as you recover from emotional exhaustion.
Dr. Gregory Jantz is the founder of The Center • A Place of HOPE in Edmonds, Washington, and a world renowned expert on depression and anxiety treatment. Pioneering Whole Person Care in the 1980’s, Dr. Jantz continues to be a leading voice and innovator in mental health utilizing a variety of therapies including nutrition, sleep therapy, spiritual counseling, and advanced DBT techniques. Dr. Jantz is a best-selling author of 37 books and has appeared on CBS, ABC, NBC, Fox, CNN.
