I
have 853 friends on Facebook and 746 followers on Twitter. I even have 305 GeekBuddies on BoardGameGeek. And,
if I'm really honest about what's going on inside my head, my life is better
than 90% of them.
That's
right - I said out loud (ok, I typed it) what we all pretend doesn't go through
our heads every time we pull up a social networking website. It's that sense of
smug superiority that bubbles in our hearts as we view someone else's life
& life choices:
- "My kids are smarter/prettier/better behaved than their kids."
- "My job is cooler/better paying than their job."
- "I'm still married & they're divorced."
- "I believe in Jesus and they don't."
This
is still pride and it's still deadly. It's
just harder to see because it takes the form of the subtle putdown rather than
the obvious puffing up. The unstated rationalization is "I'm not being
proud; I'm just glad my life isn't like theirs."
We
may couch it in spiritual clichés - the classic is "There but for the
grace of God go I." Honestly, that's mostly Christian-ese code for
"Thank God I'm not like them."
Of
course, there's a Bible story (Luke 18:9-14) that sounds rather like this...
Jesus
told a story to some people who thought they were better than others and who
looked down on everyone else:
Two
men went into the temple to pray. One was a Pharisee and the other a tax
collector. The Pharisee stood over by himself and prayed, "God, I thank
you that I am not greedy, dishonest, and unfaithful in marriage like other
people. And I am really glad that I am not like that tax collector over there.
I go without eating for two days a week, and I give you one tenth of all I
earn." The tax collector stood off at a distance and did not think he was
good enough even to look up toward heaven. He was so sorry for what he had done
that he pounded his chest and prayed, "God, have pity on me! I am such a
sinner."
Then
Jesus said, "When the two men went home, it was the tax collector and not
the Pharisee who was pleasing to God. If you put yourself above others, you
will be put down. But if you humble yourself, you will be honored."
It
doesn't matter if it's in front of a temple altar or a laptop – the Message
translation says it well: "If you walk around with your nose in the air,
you're going to end up flat on your face, but if you're content to be simply
yourself, you will become more than yourself."
Another
Reason To Stay Humble
Heard on the radio a few years back - a chunk of Elvis' hair sold at auction for
$115,000. Really.
I'm
willing to bet that exactly none of my readers would pay $1.15 for a chunk of my hair.
Quote
of the Week
The
Christians are right: it is Pride which has been the chief cause of misery in
every nation and every family since the world began. Other vices may sometimes
bring people together: you may find good fellowship and jokes and friendliness
among drunken people or unchaste people. But Pride always means enmity - it is
enmity. And not only enmity between man and man, but enmity to God.
In
God you come up against something which is in every respect immeasurably
superior to yourself. Unless you know God as that - and, therefore, know yourself
as nothing in comparison - you do not know God at all. As long as you are proud
you cannot know God. A proud man is always looking down on things and people:
and, of course, as long as you are looking down, you cannot see something that
is above you.
That
raises a terrible question. How is it that people who are quite obviously eaten
up with Pride can say they believe in God and appear to themselves very religious? I am afraid it
means they are worshiping an imaginary God. 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 and thinks them far better than ordinary
people: that is, they pay a pennyworth of imaginary humility to Him and get out
of it a pound ’s worth of Pride towards their fellow-men. I suppose it was of
those people Christ was thinking when He said that some would preach about Him
and cast out devils in His name, only to be told at the end of the world that
He had never known them. And any of us may at any moment be in this death-trap.
...Whenever we find that our religious life is making us feel that
we are good - above all, that we are better than someone else - I think we may be
sure that we are being acted on, not by God, but by the devil.
from
Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis
A version of this post appeared in the NewLife Community Church newsletter back in 2009... it's been updated because I like you.
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