March 15, 2016

Pride Makes Us Blind

If anyone thinks they are something when they are not, they deceive themselves.

-- Galatians 6:3

Many years ago a co-worker spent his mornings sipping coffee and pondering his wife’s unhappiness. He considered PMS. He considered her job. He considered everything but himself.

One day he came in with what could only be described as a shell-shocked look on his wife. He refused to talk. It eventually came out. His wife wanted a divorce.

He was a good man. Really. What he wanted most in life was to care for and provide for his wife and child. What he never considered was what she might want. He assumed he knew what she wanted. Even when she grew increasingly unhappy, he assumed he could figure it out and fix it. Fix her.

That should have been a tip off. It wasn’t. Whenever we feel the need to fix someone else, we should start looking in the mirror and seeing where we need to fix ourselves. Because it is pride looking down on someone else.

I remembered this recently when I witnessed yet another situation. Someone trying to fix someone else. You can’t. Only God can. And who says that we know best? We do. And who are we to judge? It’s not my job and it’s not your job.

Let me ask you another question: When something goes wrong, who do you blame? Yourself of the other person? How many people squabble over insignificant things just so they can be right? Who cares?! It’s pride, plain and simple.

Whatever happened to considering the other person first? What ever became of compromise and trying to look at things from the other person’s perspective? We don’t do that anymore. We’re too self-focused. We’re too filled with pride in ourselves to think about anyone else -- even when we really love them. Because we love ourselves more.

That dear man eventually recovered. So do we. But do we ever learn?

A man’s pride will bring him low,
But the humble in spirit will retain honor.

-- Proverbs 29:23

Every time.