Pride

In trying to conduct myself according to God’s desires, I think, my biggest hurdle is my sense of pride. Lure of the flesh, temptation by devils, and bad example by other humans would be significant roadblocks in my being faithful to God. However, since the flesh is weak, its weakness gives me some leeway in making wrong choices. For example, if I am dealing with chemical addictions, not only self-inflicted additions like drug addition and alcoholism, but with addictions that I did not bring upon myself, like an overactive libido or excessive craving for food, etc. I’m sure God will take those things into consideration when I finally am confronted by God.

However, far more influential in fixing my relation with God is my pride, my sense of who I think I am and what I should be entitled to. Pride, I’m sure, is instigated by the Devil and is fanned into expressing itself by the bad example of others in the world, but the appeal is always to something within me, something not organic, biological, but an appeal to my person, to my sense of who I think I am. It seems to me that I have a tendency to think that I am autonomous, that I guide my own destiny and choose my own means of arriving there. This is a hard attitude to discipline.

My pride, if I don’t discipline it, can easily put me in opposition to God, a big mistake for me. After all, God is God, and I am something God created.

Maurice A. Williams