The Great Sin: Pride

The discussion this morning in our men's group centered around our fight against pride, as C.S. Lewis stated, "The Great Sin." The sin of pride is apparent in my life in numerous ways, most of which are quite devastating as it manages to "eat up the very possibility of love, or contentment, or even common sense" (Mere Christianity, 106). It has been pride which has often hindered me from experiencing deep friendship with others, intimacy with my wife, & forgiveness that I so desperately needed. 

May I share with you a few quotes from Lewis that have helped define pride in my life:

• "Pride gets no pleasure out of having something, only out of having more of it than the next man...it is the comparison that makes you proud: the pleasure of being above the rest." 
• "Pride always means enmity--it is enmity. And not only enmity between man & man, but enmity to God."
• "In God you come up against something which is in every respect immeasurable superior to yourself. Unless you know God as that--and therefore, know yourself as nothing in comparison--you do not know God at all." 
• On the religious proud..."They theoretically admit themselves to be nothing in the presence of this phantom God, but are really all the time imagining how He approves of them & thinks them far better than ordinary people." 
• "He wants you to know Him: wants to give you Himself. And He & you are two things of such a kind that if you really get into any kind of touch with Him you will, in fact, be humble--delightfully humble, feeling the infinite relief of having for once got rid of all the silly nonsense about your own dignity which has made you restless & unhappy all your life. He is trying to make you humble in order to make this moment possible: trying to take off a lot of silly, ugly, fancy-dress in which we have all got ourselves up & are strutting about like the little idiots we are."
• "Do not imagine that if you meet a really humble man he will be what most people call 'humble' nowadays...Probably all you will think about him is that he seemed a cheerful, intelligent chap who took a real interest in what you said to him. If you do dislike him it will be because you feel a little envious of anyone who seems to enjoy life so easily. He will not be thinking about humility: he will not be thinking about himself at all." 

As I reflect, I must conclude that one of the greatest gifts that God may grant me would be that of self-forgetfulness. For my consistent habit is that of self-concern & inward focus. Yet, I occasionally catch a glimpse of God & find that He is much more worth being enamored by. And, for that matter, everyone is grateful for my being with God. 

May we be so consumed with Him that our thoughts of self seem to diminish.