A Matter of Pride

This month I’ve been writing about how we are to look to God instead of people for acceptance and approval and how we can experience a life of purpose and freedom when we seek to please God.  One thing that can really get in the way of this is our pride.

Pride tells us that we may appear foolish or face rejection if we say or do certain things.  It poses questions such as, “What if this makes me look stupid?  What if I embarrass myself?  What if people think I’m out-of-line?  What if people think I’m weird?  What if I’m shunned?”  None of these things may actually happen, but often times we don’t act simply because of the fear that they will.  And even if they do, even if people judge us or reject us, that doesn’t define our worth.

This is something that took me many years to realize.  To start with, I’m introverted by nature.  Over the years, my natural tendencies as an introvert developed into some deep insecurities due to various situations I encountered.

I would find myself in social situations feeling like I didn’t belong or that people had no interest in me if they didn’t attempt to talk to me.  It never occurred to me that others might be feeling the same way and were waiting for me to talk to them first.  I also worried that when I spoke, I would say the “wrong” things, that people wouldn’t like what I had to say, and that people ultimately wouldn’t like me.  And often times I convinced myself that people actually didn’t like me.  Sometimes the more I was around people, the more alone I felt.

Though I had friends, my relationships and my emotional well-being suffered because of my insecurities.  I often felt excluded because I had trouble reaching out to people.  If people didn’t reach out to me, I assumed they didn’t want to talk or spend time with me.  On occasions when I did reach out to people, if they didn’t respond (or didn’t respond the way I expected), I felt ignored or rejected.

For a long time, I never discussed my feelings with anyone because I assumed that I was the only one feeling that way and that those around me didn’t struggle with such things.  However, little by little, I began to discover otherwise.  God then began to stir a desire in me to start reaching out to people.  As I stepped out of my comfort zone and reached out to others, I discovered more and more that many people were struggling with the same issues that I was facing.

I also learned that when my focus was on other people’s needs, my pride took a backseat.  In the past, I thought I had been focusing on others’ needs because I had always tried to be nice and to be there for people, but God showed me that I had been doing this because I wanted people to like me.  It’s not that I didn’t genuinely care, I did, but I was wanting people to reciprocate.  When I removed that expectation, I was able to reach out to others without the fear of judgment or rejection.

I’m not saying that I’ve mastered this by any means.  There are still times that my insecurities creep in.  However, I’m better able to recognize this now and to operate out of God’s truth.  There are other times when my insecurities drag me down completely, but I still know God’s truth, even if I can’t receive it in the moment, and am able to press on in this hope and in God’s strength.

Although your experiences are different from mine, I’m sure you can identify with feelings of insecurity.  Perhaps these feelings have kept you from speaking up or reaching out to others.  Perhaps you’re concerned that if you say or do certain things it might give people an unfavorable opinion of you.  Perhaps you’ve not stepped into what God is asking of you because you fear judgment or rejection.  I encourage you to take some time to consider this and to ask God to reveal any instances in which your thoughts and actions are ruled by pride.  When it’s all said and done, other people’s judgments don’t define our worth.  Our worth is in God, and our greatest blessings come through operating out of this truth and humbling ourselves to being obedient to whatever God calls us to do.

“When pride comes, then comes disgrace, but with humility comes wisdom.” – Proverbs 11:2 (NIV)

For additional insight on this topic, see my prior posts this month and further study within the next month.