Pride and Insecurity

It doesn’t take a very long look at the world to figure out that man is fallen, broken, and flawed. The world is filled with bombings, murders, terrorism, rape, lies, theft, jealousy hunger, and pain. Almost anybody you ask would agree that there is something fundamentally wrong with mankind, but at the same time what would happen if you asked a random person on the street what they struggle with personally, or what their flaws were? They would probably be rather startled and offended. I know I would be. Why is it so easy to identify the flaws of others but so hard to see our own?

We were created for a perfectly loving relationship with God. We are wired to receive complete and total affirmation of our souls from Him, which he offers freely, but there’s a problem: in Eden and today, we choose sin. God is constantly trying to tell us that we are important and loved, but we turn our backs and try to earn this same feeling by striving to be better than others, often by pointing out their flaws to them or even just thinking about them. We probably don’t even know we’re doing it. I see myself doing it even as I write this, thinking that I’m better or somehow more important than someone who doesn’t understand these things. This is disgusting. This is what sin looks like.

Have you ever looked at a person who was in pain or struggling with something and felt better about yourself afterward? Without God, we have to build ourselves up constantly, leaving little room for love because of this desperate need inside of us. This person becomes an opportunity to fill ourselves with pride by subconsciously thinking something like “See, I’m not in pain like they are! I’m better than they are,” rather than an opportunity to care for them, to show God’s love.

The hard part is we become so dependent on this pride to tell us that we matter that we are blind to our situation. Romans 10:3 says “Since they did not know the righteousness that comes from God and sought to establish their own, they did not submit to God's righteousness.” In order for our “works righteousness” to even temporarily compare to God’s love, we have to create such an inflated self-image that there’s no room for flaws. I find it very hard to think about my mistakes when I feel proud about something. When we inevitably do sin, however, or feel this self-image threatened somehow, our ego is smashed. And it hurts. This is called insecurity, and I’m sure we’ve all felt it. It comes when we fail, when we are ignored, or in any way told that we are not as significant as our bloated self-worth makes us think we are. Even then, however, when we are at our weakest, we often put more faith in ourselves than in God. We wait for our own accolades to pick us up rather than accepting the free salvation given by Jesus at the cross. Romans 3:23-24 says “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.”

This is an amazing gift. It is a gift of love and security, confidence, and freedom. In his book Searching for God Knows What, Donald Miller says "Imagine how much a man's life would be changed if he trusted that he was loved by God? He could interact with the poor and not show partiality, he could love his wife easily and not expect her to redeem him, he would be slow to anger because redemption was no longer at stake, he could be wise and giving with his money because money no longer represented points, he could give up on formulaic religion, knowing that checking stuff off a spiritual to-do list was a worthless pursuit, he would have confidence and the ability to laugh at himself, and he could love people without expecting anything in return. It would be quite beautiful, really." A few months ago I would have been terrified at the thought of writing something like this, but now I’m seeing that quote become reality in my life. And the best part is it is free. We don’t have to do anything to earn it, and what’s more, we couldn’t do anything anyway. We cannot be redeemed by God until we tear down our walls of pride and acknowledge our inability to redeem ourselves.

From The Message translation (Ro: 21-24, 28, 31):

Since we've compiled this long and sorry record as sinners and proved that we are utterly incapable of living the glorious lives God wills for us, God did it for us. Out of sheer generosity he put us in right standing with himself. A pure gift. He got us out of the mess we're in and restored us to where he always wanted us to be. And he did it by means of Jesus Christ.

Our lives get in step with God and all others by letting him set the pace, not by proudly or anxiously trying to run the parade.

But by shifting our focus from what we do to what God does, don't we cancel out all our careful keeping of the rules and ways God commanded? Not at all. What happens, in fact, is that by putting that entire way of life in its proper place, we confirm it.