Pride is one of the seven deadly sins or mortal sins because it kills the life of sanctifying grace within us.
Pride is the key to all other sins, because after you believe that you’re more important than you actually are, you compensate for it when others don’t agree with your judgment. You rationalize your behavior and make excuses for lying, cheating, stealing, insulting, ignoring, and such, because no one understands you like you do. In your mind, you’re underestimated by the world (The Seven Deadly Sins).
Pride makes us touchy and oversensitive, anythings offends the proud. People have to walk on eggshells to talk to us. Spouses are always afraid of us divorcing them. Bosses can never get dedicated work from workers who think their job is below them. Employees are always afraid of getting fired by an arrogant boss. Pride is at the root of so many of our failures.
Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall (Proverbs 16:18).
Pride also seems like an increasing trend: everyone today is offended by the smallest of things. It is no wonder in 2016, the “snowflake generation” was added to the Collins English Dictionary’s words of the year: “Young adults of the 2010s, viewed as being less resilient and more prone to taking offence than previous generations”.
The Lord says, “The wise should not boast of their wisdom, nor the strong of their strength, nor the rich of their wealth” (Jeremiah 9:23).
Our enemy uses the sin of pride to make his first steps in our lives by hardening us against any kind of improvement or correction with the idea we do not need it.
Arrogance causes nothing but trouble. It is wiser to ask for advice (Proverbs 13:10).
Satan knows quite well the consequences of thinking we never need to ask for advice.
It was the sin of pride that spurred Satan to oppose his Maker, the Living God of the Universe
For, let’s not forget that tradition states, at the beginning of time, our Father in Heaven asked satan to help the creature he had just made out of mud (us). Our enemy thought this task was below him because an angel made of fire should not have to spend his valuable time helping eath bound mortals.
In your heart you said: “I will scale the heavens; Above the stars of God I will set up my throne; I will take my seat on the Mount of Assembly, on the heights of Zaphon. I will ascend above the tops of the clouds; I will be like the Most High!”(Isaiah 14:13-14).
Our Father in Heaven was fed up with satan and followers; they were becoming increasingly touchy, prone to get offended at anything, increasingly unable to offer the love which never asks the reason and always says yes. When Satan started thinking he was a god, Our Father proved this pride was really baseless and threw that angel and his followers out of His presence forever.
How you have fallen from the heavens, O Morning Star,* son of the dawn!How you have been cut down to the earth, you who conquered nations! (Isaiah 14:13-14).
The Lord hates everyone who is arrogant; he will never let them escape punishment (Proverbs 16:5).
It sounds idiotic that a creature would think it is better than the God who created it. That’s exactly what pride does to us: it turns us into foolish people who brag.
The most stupid fool is better off than those who think they are wise when they are not (Proverbs 26:12).
Pride is actually our worst enemy. If we could somehow know the number of opportunities we lost because of something someone said, or a requirement that we refused to comply with, or that we thought that opportunity was below us.
However, pride is not something we can fight on our own. When at least we recognize that we are proud, we always fail to change ourselves.
The wicked do not care about the Lord; in their pride they think that God doesn’t matter (Psalm 10:4).
We say that we will do better next time until we have a meeting with someone who does not look at us in the face, or an employee tells us some bad news or a boss asks us something we know is silly and useless, or a spouse asks us for something we think is a waste of time.
To honor the Lord is to hate evil; I hate pride and arrogance, evil ways and false words (Proverbs 8:13) .
We think that someone with our skills should be put to better use.
Don’t do anything from selfish ambition or from a cheap desire to boast, but be humble toward one another, always considering others better than yourselves ((Philippians 2:3) .
If we think a request is a waste of our valuable, scarce time/money/whatever and we refuse to do it, we act just like our enemy.
Just like the best neurosurgeon in the world is still unable to operate on his own brain: he needs another to do it. Similarly, we just cannot fix our pride on our own. If that angel had requested the help of God to fix his incoming pride he’d still be in heaven.
(James 4:10) Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.
So we need a “neurosurgeon’ to fix us, and no one better suited than the apex of humility: Saint Joseph. Yes, because it takes an enormous amount of humility to call a child everyone thinks is the fruit of adultery “my son”, and on top of that to think he is the promised Messiah. One can only imagine all the laughter and ridicule that would have been generated when he married Mary because women were not considered deserving any special consideration, especially when adulterous.
Saint Joseph wasn’t asked to provide a great life for Jesus, but to just be humble and accept that humanely absurd situation.
Pride is the source of all evil and of all the bad stuff that happens to us, and not something we can fix ourselves: if we are able to at least accept those simple concepts we will open the door for a heavenly fix. Our lives will be much better, and even better in the afterlife!
Love is patient and kind; it is not jealous or conceited or proud (1 Corinthians 13:4).
4 thoughts on “Pride: Our Own Worst Enemy”
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The Divine Will revelations can also be a great help , helping us to be both grateful and try to trust in God’s Love , in being blessed to Love God with His Will and His Love –
http://www.comingofthekingdom.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/43-Grace.pdf
The words of Bl.Mother attributing everything to the Divine Will also helpful , seeing the self will as the ‘nothingness ‘ that is ever meant to serve the Divine Will and true , may be easier said than done in most lives –
https://www.benedictinesofdivinewill.org/uploads/3/4/3/2/34324596/mary_in_dw.pdf
Wonderfully said, this is talking about me too. Thanks be to God, I can open my eyes and heart and soul for a better me.
Pride is also our refusal to unconditionally trust in God (see 1Peter 5:5-7, Philippians 4:6-7, Matthew 6:25-27, Psalms 37:7, 55:22, Isaiah 26:3-4, 55:7-9, John 6:63, and Galatians 5:22-23).