Beware of Pride I. Mar 3rd

Beware of Pride

I first read this talk while serving as a missionary. I was with my trainer, who had this huge book of quotes and talks she gathered here and there. When I read it, I was struck to the core. I didn't ever recall talking about pride too much in church or seminary (well, maybe in the Book of Mormon studies), but it didn't strike me like it did then. I generally read this talk once a year and when I do I am reminded that I need to be a little (or a lot) more humble. Reading it makes me re-evaluate why I do all the things that I do. Evaluating yourself is not an easy thing to do, at least when you are trying to do it and not convince yourself you are right, but being open to the possibility that you are wrong, perhaps in many areas.

So, there are two major parts to pride, being defined as having enmity towards something - hatred, hostility or being in a state of opposition: 1) enmity toward God and 2) enmity toward follow beings. Today I'll post about enmity toward God. Tomorrow will be enmity toward man.

Here we are, human beings. We're all we (well, most of us) have is visible, tangible evidence of what we and other humans can do. We are humans among humans, not humans among Gods. Because humanity is all that we know, without putting effort forth to know something else (God), we compare everything we know and learn and feel to human standards, and we think we're right. Hopefully as humans we feel there is more to humanity than humans, either by having experience with the Spirit, with divine feelings, or even at a basic level, acknowledging that there are unanswerable answers about science, life, passions and such. So then, if you discover that there is something greater than human life, in my case a Divine Being, we compare what we know, to what He knows and tells us, which is perfectly right and follows the plan of happiness, then we need to make a choice about which line of living and thinking we need to follow.

Here's where pride comes in. Sometimes a way of living or thinking has worked so well for us, or sometimes it's just easier, we want to keep living and thinking those things even though we know we would be happier in the end to follow God's instruction or that it's just expected of us since we do know a "higher" law. Enmity towards God, as Pres. Benson teaches (I'm just going to enter a big quote in from the talk because he says it so well):

"Pride is essentially competitive in nature. We pit our will against God’s. When we direct our pride toward God, it is in the spirit of “my will and not thine be done.” As Paul said, they “seek their own, not the things which are Jesus Christ’s.” (Philip. 2:21.)
Our will in competition to God’s will allows desires, appetites, and passions to go unbridled. (See Alma 38:12; 3 Ne. 12:30.)
The proud cannot accept the authority of God giving direction to their lives. (See Hel. 12:6.) They pit their perceptions of truth against God’s great knowledge, their abilities versus God’s priesthood power, their accomplishments against His mighty works.
Our enmity toward God takes on many labels, such as rebellion, hard-heartedness, stiff-neckedness, unrepentant, puffed up, easily offended, and sign seekers. The proud wish God would agree with them. They aren’t interested in changing their opinions to agree with God’s."

This line is the kicker: "Our will in competition to God’s will allows desires, appetites, and passions to go unbridled." Essentially that's the problem with pride. We think we can do whatever we want, which is what the world teaches: no one should be in authority over you, you should make your own rules, you know what's best for yourself, not the God who actually made you. These lines are so appealing, but the great irony of life is that you are not happy unless you work. You have to work to bridle your passions, desires and appetites and that they do indeed need to be bridled or you have no direction, no anchor, no foundation, to the point that you are left as a slave to your passions. You have to work to actually figure out that working means more to you than vacation, or at least to realize that you need both work and vacation, but not one without the other.

I could go on, but I'll stop. Essentially, to me, the line "beware of pride" means that it will sneak into your mind and heart, it is inevitable. That we need to be actively aware (by praying often plus more) of shifts in our perspectives and actions and continually judge what we need to do to block or root that pride out before it leads us to a selfishly rooted unhappiness, that we will tell ourselves is real happiness. How about that for a run-on sentence?