Got Pride?

"Pride - Do you look down on others? Or, do you feel you aren't as good or worthy as others are? Do you find yourself arguing or being contentious with others? Do you resist yielding to authority? Do you become defensive when corrected? Do you resist being open about all areas of your life with trustworthy people? Do you resist asking people for assistance, or depending on and needing others in healthy ways? Do you resist admitting you are wrong? Are you easily offended?"

 Pride is something I've struggled with for a while. Well let's be honest most people struggle with pride and by most i mean everybody. Over the past year i have gained better control over pride. I mostly saw it when dealing with my artwork. I wanted to stay humble about all of it. When I had my deliverance session we (the person praying for me and I) pin-pointed some other areas pride resided in my life. We prayed over those areas and i felt i had made some progress. I didn't see pride there any more.

As I look back on my summer i see that I have convicted others of being prideful. I see it all over their life, and actions. As far as I could tell I didn't convict them in a bad way. But have I been too busy worrying about correcting other people, i miss what needs to be corrected in my own life and actions? I was just reading an e-mail from Dick Schroeder's 'You've Got the Holy Spirit.' This e-mail, along with the previous one, talked about pride. This one specifically focused on what it looks like and what it means to be prideful. It was very convicting especially the excerpt above from Joy Schroeder's Tools For Mentoring Moral Inventory section. It really made me think hard about whether I had pride in my life or not.

I found that I did. It is still evident in my life and it's probably just as evident to others around me as it was to me in my friends lives. It has made me realize that i need to add pride to the list of things I ask God to help me overcome. I can't just pray for deliverance once from it and be done. No, it is a continual battle.

One of my favorite bible verses is 1 Peter 5:6 "So humble yourself under the mighty power of God and at the right time he will lift you up in honor." This verse has always helped me with pride. Up until today however, I thought of it more in the creative artistic aspect. Now I will take this verse a step deeper and apply it to all areas of my life.